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Marlene was an outsider. All the locals thought so. The kind of kid other parents told their children to steer clear of. Tangled hair and worn out clothes, she was a dirty refugee—one of those unwanted burdens from Corel.
“Did you see?” hissed a shopkeeper. “Another pair came rolling into town!”
“Another one from Corel?”
“Are they running away from the mess they made too?”
“Why can’t someone else take them in?”
Marlene just looked away. She let her tears die in her eyelashes. What else could she do? Crying never helped. Sometimes it made the voices around her louder. Those horrible voices that scratched their way into her memory. She covered her ears tightly. The loud complaints grew into shouts.
Her daddy tried to change their minds with his own voice time and time again, but they took his words, twisting them into brambles and thorns. With no home or community to turn to, they were truly alone. Finding a job or a place to stay was a challenge for Barret. Even taking on the jobs that no one else wanted never lasted longer than a season or so. Childcare wasn’t even an option, which meant Marlene always stayed close to her daddy, helping where she could…but this place didn’t want her help. And it definitely didn’t want to help her.
More and more often, every road they took had the same destination.
“Get out of here and go back where you filthy criminals came from!” hollered an older man. Nothing brought the neighborhood together like denying desperate people their asylum. Chest puffed out and fists raised, he felt much braver hurling insults when he had half the block with him.
“We won’t let you ruin our town!”
“You or any other stains of the Goddess crawling out of Corel!”
Marlene felt her father bristle at that. She squeezed his hand tighter. These people weren’t uncommon. According to her daddy, calling them ‘people’ was being generous. What kind of person treated a fellow human being like that? After hearing them fling one painful slur after another, Marlene was pretty sure their tongues were made of barbed wire.
“You people only cause problems!”
“Stay the hell away from our Reactor!”
“Did your piece of shit town send you terrorists to bomb ours too?! Get lost!”
Very few people wanted to take in anyone from Corel after its people were blamed for the Reactor explosion. Marlene’s daddy told her how Shinra controlled the news and within a day of the tragedy, had everyone thinking their little mining village was a den of criminals.
“Let’s go, Marlene…” Barret led her past the village before its occupants dragged out the torches and pitchforks. “No sense stayin’ in a place like this.”
Marlene nodded and tried to focus on the large birds squawking in the distance. Anything to tune out the racket behind them.
On the nights where her thoughts refused to sleep, they turned into birds that fluttered and flapped inside her head. Memories of fire, shouting, and the ground shaking rattled her very core. Marlene and Barret had barely escaped Corel with their lives…why did every day after need to feel like a struggle too?
Her daddy always told her thoughts were like birds from their homeland. Some flew away quickly and others built nests inside folks’ heads.
“And your head is beautiful!” he ruffled her hair. “More beautiful than any tree or birdhouse! No wonder those thoughts don’t wanna fly away from you!”
The little girl imagined a bird dozing in a nest on top of her head.
“Ya gotta make room in there for all the good thoughts, Marlene,” Barret let his enthusiasm cover his exhaustion. “You just wait and see! Things are gonna change for us and fill up your head with happy thoughts! We’ll find ourselves a real home and then I’m gonna build you a garden! Just like you always wanted.”
Hope slowly bloomed among all her worries.
“What do you want to grow, baby? We can grow anything! I’ll get you some flowers and carrots and even mushrooms if ya really want!” his laughter rumbled through them both. “We might have to build two gardens!
Marlene struggled to find the right words. Maybe they were still inside an egg waiting to hatch? She gave Barret a hug and heard him smile in the dark.
“Goodnight, Marlene.”
Despite every hardship thrown at her, Marlene still had so much untapped hope to share with the world. For the first time, things were changing in her life. Her dad talked to one of his new Planetology friends and Marlene was about to regain something she’d lost years ago—a home.
“You got that, honey?” Barret asked her over lunch. If either of them ever saw a tuna fish sandwich again, it would be too soon. “It’s real important you remember that.”
Marlene nodded. She might be a girl of few words, but her mind was brimming with information—her new address floating at the top. Barret had practiced it with her over and over again. He liked to think she would never need the knowledge, but wanted her to have it just in case.
Barret’s lunch break was over. He returned to all the heavy lifting his boss could squeeze into a shift. Crates didn’t bother a man used to mining coal day in and day out. Bins of dirty plates were feathers compared to that (even if the prosthetic arm took some getting used to). Like every customer service job, it was the customers themselves who ruined the entire work environment. There were always a few who noticed Marlene silently writing on scrap paper in the corner and felt the need to share their opinions while he bussed their tables.
“She can’t talk? What’s wrong with her?”
“Getting through Midgar customs won’t be easy if ya draw extra attention to yourselves!” warned one of the people at the tavern.
Marlene walked past them. Past the front doors of the building and the fishermen on the docks. It was there she could hear herself think. Dipping her feet into the water, she wished she was a mermaid or a fish. Able to be surrounded by her friends without words. Connected to others who hugged away her worries and helped her find her smile no matter how long it took.
She had an address, a real place she could call home soon, but no one to share the news with. What good were these letters she wrote without anyone to send them to? Tears stung her eyes again. Marlene pulled out the last of her scrap paper and wrote one final letter. Through this tiny action, she gave her thoughts wings.
Zack Fair was not a man of few words. In fact, his superior officers sometimes wished he’d stop talking. Yet, no one could deny that man’s charisma.
“S-Sir? I’ve never fought anything like this before…!”
“Relax!” Zack clapped an Infantryman on the shoulder. “They don’t pay me to stand around and look pretty!”
Not that it was hard to look good when your opponents were a freaky-ass skeleton and a cross between a mutated flounder fish and Shinra’s entire supply of chainsaws.
He was currently stationed in Junon’s Underwater Reactor, finishing up a monster-hunting assignment involving an army of rogue Corvettes and an actual Ghost Ship. Both of those problems were solved with his newly mastered Aerial Drain technique. Which was fantastic because Zack’s charisma was only eclipsed by his knowledge of batshit crazy battle tactics.
Or at least that’s what witnesses would claim.
What else were they supposed to think when the SOLDIER leaped into the air over the organic power tools, dropping in with the force of a missile, only to absorb all their health and distribute it among others with the assistance of an All materia?
“Uh, sir?!” shouted the Infantryman, trying to get Zack’s attention. Mr. Shinra Grunt wasn’t normally the guy who complained, especially when he got out of visiting the weirdos in Medical. He just happened to notice something...mildly concerning about the giant demonic ship floating around them, chanting in dead languages. “Why are you healing the enemy?!”
“Wait for it…”
Suddenly, the Ghost Ship had the worst allergic reaction to light-based curative spells of its un-life. Symptoms included unholy skeletal screeching, exploding hulls, and a more permanent death situation.
Zack secured his sword to his harness. “Any other monsters bothering ya?”
The Reactor staff were quick to escort him back to the surface.
All in a day’s work.
The SOLDIER was enjoying a quick break on the beaches, just outside Junon. Something shimmered on the shoreline, causing Zack to take off for it (he couldn’t help it—he grew up playing video games. If it sparkled, he investigated).
Zack crouched down to pick up the treasure—a glass bottle in the sunlight. Even more exciting than shiny things, was the fact that this bottle had a message written inside it. Now he had to open it up! What if it was a treasure map? If SOLDIER didn’t work out, Zack could be the next king of the pirates!
The message was more important than any treasure chest.
Dear Letter Finder,
My name is Marlene. I’m six years old and don’t talk good. I’m different and I don’t have any friends. If you get this letter please write me back. My home is Apartment #1, Seventh Heaven Building, Sector 7 Slums in Midgar. Me and my Daddy are moving in soon. One day I want to make lots of friends.
Love,
Marlene
Zack read and reread the letter several times. Whoever this Marlene was, she had better handwriting than he did as an adult. He looked around. The Junon-brand whisky bottle was pretty obviously thrown into the ocean from the nearby docks. It probably traveled a whopping three-quarters of a mile before washing up on the beach.
None of that mattered to Zack (except for maybe a child’s handwriting one-upping his own). He just got assigned to the most important mission he would ever undertake…
He was going to make sure Marlene had friends.
Zack waited about a week before writing Marlene back. He wanted to make sure she had time to settle into her new place. His follow-up mission took him farther south to some fishing villages near the ocean, which was perfect! He picked up a local postcard with a sailor-suited chocobo posing in front of a fishing ship. With any luck, she’d think her message in a bottle floated all the way there.
Dear Marlene,
Hello from Sailor’s Rest! I sure was surprised to find your letter this morning!
One of my dreams is to make friends too! Then I’ll swim all around the world to visit them! Don’t you worry about talking either. I talk so much that my boss sometimes yells at me! You’ll find your voice when you’re ready. I can tell you’re one smart kid!
Midgar’s a really big and really fun place! And it’s gonna be even better with you living in it. Congrats on your new home, I hope you and your dad like it.
I threw your message back into the ocean for somebody else to find. I hope it helps you make lots of new friends around the world!
Your friend,
Zack
Marlene’s fingers shook when she found the postcard in their dented mailbox. It was a little battered from its journey from the Plate to the Slums, but it worked! Not only did somebody find her message in a bottle and respond, but they wanted to help her make even more friends!
She didn’t know much more about the guy who sent that letter other than his name. She didn’t have to.
The clearance rack postcard from a tiny port town became her first real treasure.
Midgar wasn’t easy, but Barret and Marlene were making do. They sometimes got lost in such a big place, but Barret was good at talking to people. Marlene hoped she would be one day too, her Daddy worked so hard, so she would too.
Unfortunately, every time she tried to talk, the words got tangled up inside. Sometimes they even burned her tongue as she pushed them out. She tried to not get discouraged, but it was hard when everyone around her held conversations with ease. They’d ask Barret why his daughter was so quiet? Didn’t she know how to talk? What was wrong with her? Marlene’s first memories of this involved her daddy squaring up with whoever badmouthed his kid. He could be facing one person or twenty and he’d still make them think twice about opening their own yaps again.
He still had her back, he always did, but lately Marlene noticed some doubt creeping into his words. Those bad thoughts were trying to roost in Barret’s head too. Doubt gave way to resentment and that resentment weaved itself around all of the broken pieces that Corel left behind. It would be easier if it was aimed at her…
It wasn’t.
“Dammit!” Barret choked back his anger. His daughter hadn’t been asleep for very long, he didn’t want to wake her. “I just can’t get it right… Why can’t I just get it right…?!”
Despite all his bravado for others, Barret was worried to death that he did something wrong. That somewhere along their long journey he caused Marlene to close herself off. He was convinced she was afraid to express herself because of the way he raised her on the road. Barret never made a scene in front of Marlene, but that didn’t mean her heart didn’t break whenever he quietly admitted that to his friends while she was tossing and turning upstairs in her room.
There were more than a few nights she’d pull out her postcard and reread it for comfort. By now, the edges were smoothed where her fingers held it like a life preserver. Even the picture was losing some of its glossy shine from being handled so much. None of that mattered to her, as long as she had her friend’s words…
Don’t you worry about talking.
You’ll find your voice when you’re ready.
I can tell you’re one smart kid!
Midgar’s a really big and really fun place! And it’s gonna be even better with you living in it.
Marlene let her thoughts gather twigs and grass from the words her penpal sent her until there was enough to build a new nest. She didn’t know who Zack was, but his words of encouragement meant the world to her.
It wasn’t long until her treasures doubled.
Hello and salutations, Marlene!
One of my chocobos plucked your letter in a bottle up from a stream this morning. We were getting our morning exercise in and your letter made our day! I read it to the birds and they gave you their ‘kweh’ of approval!
If you like chocobos, you should come visit a ranch sometime. There’s always fun tours and just about every region’s chocobo type has a superpower! Here in Condor’s Ridge, our birds can climb mountains!
Thanks again for your letter! My ‘bos kept fighting me over it, so I tossed it back in to travel on. I hope you’ve made lots of friends already. Now you can add me and about a dozen chocobos to that list.
Your friend,
Teioh and Flock
Zack felt very confident in his choice of chocobo postcards when he was taking care of monsters near a ranch. Next time he passed one, he made a mental note to send Marlene a chocobo feather too. Especially one of the fancy colors! On his way to his next meeting he debated sending it in an envelope or taping it onto a postcard somehow.
Marlene could read and write with the best of them, but somehow spoken words still escaped her. She opened her mouth to talk and tasted sand. This made it difficult to make friends herself, but one of her daddy’s new friends, Tifa, was very kind to her.
Tifa helped them move in when they had first arrived. She said she remembered how overwhelmed it felt when she first moved in, so she liked helping others. Tifa made the best cookies and was strong enough to carry bookshelves all on her own.
When business was slow, Tifa taught Barret and Marlene the ins and outs of hair care. Sometimes, she’d sneak Marlene a treat from Seventh Heaven while they sat on the front steps before opening hours. Tifa would brush Marlene’s hair and hum songs from her old home in the mountains. On really good days, Marlene found herself able to hum along too.
Midgar could hold plenty of people. No small wonder Tifa wasn’t the only one from Nibelheim…
“Hey, Spiky! You got a minute?”
It wasn’t long before Zack recruited his friends to help out with Project Penpal. He didn’t have to be buddies with a bunch of Turks to know it was important to keep the handwriting from matching. Most of his SOLDIER pals had no problem sending off a postcard when they went on a mission. Sebastian and Essai came to blows over who got the privilege of buying the last sparkly Moogle postcard from the Gold Saucer.
Cloud wasn’t used to being included in anything resembling a group project. He said yes before Zack even finished explaining his Top Secret Mission.
“Why’d I agree to this…?” he groaned, staring at the blank writing section. Getting the postcard was easy. Knowing what to say in it was another matter.
He started describing the Nibel mountains. How they scraped the sky and howled in the winter. How the Nibel folks who came before him carved out their town with their own hands. They must have been made from stone themselves. Before he knew it, Cloud was almost out of room. The country boy didn’t even realize how much he missed the familiar peaks he could trace by memory on his window pane back home. When he was done with this letter, he vowed to finally get around to writing his mom too. Maybe even ask her to help out Marlene. She could send one off from Nibelheim. Maybe even…
If you ever go to Nibelheim, ask for Tifa to be your guide. Some other losers might claim they’re the best, but nobody knows those mountains like Tifa. She’s the real pro.
Good luck out there,
C. Odinson
Marlene was excited to show this card to Tifa. She couldn’t remember where Tifa originally came from before she ended up in Midgar to make her own way in life, but the way Tifa smiled ear to ear when she read it and laughed at the sender’s name, made Marlene think they now had a mutual friend.
Dear Marlene,
Greetings from the middle of nowhere! Did you know Cactuars love to dance?
Your average person might run out of things to talk about. Not Zack Fair. He didn’t go on assignments. He went on adventures. Sometimes he saw cool animals and saved Marlene a feather or taped a tiny stone he found in a cave to a postcard. Sometimes he drew bushy beards, missing teeth, or eyepatches on prominent Shinra employee photos (Marlene’s daddy and his friends got a kick out of that one). And sometimes he had misadventures at the Mog House.
Mooglets look cute, but they’re a lot less adorable when they drop fireballs on you!
Over the holidays Zack went home to Gongaga. His parents had all kinds of questions about everything.
“So, is there any special lady in your life?” his mom asked over dinner.
“Yeah, Ma!” Zack laughed, handing her a slip of paper. “Here’s her address. She’s a big city girl.”
Mrs. Fair blinked in surprise. “Her name’s Marlene? That’s beautiful!”
“Uh-huh.”
“Well, tell us all about her,” his father urged Zack.
“Let’s see… She’s kinda the shy type, but very sweet,” he began. “She’s moved around a lot, but seems happy to be in Midgar now…”
His parents were so excited he finally found someone nice to—
“Oh, and she’s probably about seven now. Would you guys mind sending her a postcard from here? She really likes getting letters.”
His mom cuffed him in the back of the head while he laughed. Their expressions had been worth it.
Dear Marlene,
A hedgehog pulled your letter out of the Gongaga river for me. Those critters are cute, but you can’t trust them for a second or they get into all sorts of mischief. Where I live, the weather is the same—one minute it’s sunny, the next it rains. Everything is connected here. Layers of flowers, vines, trees, and every animal you can imagine sees to that. The jungle is an amazing place!
You sound like a very sweet girl. I hope you and your family like it in Midgar. I’ve never been to the big city before.
Here’s a recipe for our famous mushroom soup. I learned how to make it from my aunt. If you ever travel this way, we can make it together!
Your new friend,
Victoria Fair
Marlene had enjoyed receiving her first of many recipe cards. She didn’t have an aunt from Corel, but she had a Tifa! The two made it a tradition to make every recipe Marlene got. Then, they’d eat it together with Barret, Jessie, Biggs, and Wedge. Some went over better than others, but Marlene wouldn’t trade all the laughs and mini dance parties with Tifa during the cooking process for anything.
Mama Fair had been very proud of her letter. Her husband wrote one too, but decided to hold off on sending it, so Marlene’s bottle could ‘travel’ some more.
He was pretty sure Marlene would enjoy the postcard of a bright green chocobo bouncing off a giant mushroom to go with his story of all the crazy stunts his son tried to do midair. There was a reason his boy’s hair was spiky and it had everything to do with how often he landed on his head.
By the time Zack visited home again and sent off a postcard full of tips and tricks for navigating the Gongaga jungle, half the village was willing to write to Marlene—Sotetsu even had his letter (filled with recommended exercise regimens) ready to go.
“How ‘bout you send that one off when you finally fix your own form?” Zack teased him.
“But everything I know about squats I learned from you!”
“C’mon, man… you know you’re supposed to bend your knees more!” Easy for someone who replaced their quadriceps with steel to say. “You can’t call that a squat if you don’t use your glutes too.”
“Then teach me, great warrior!” Sotetsu was not above giving his old friend a hard time.
“You gotta focus on your stamina, not strength,” Zack reminded him, always willing to show others how he became the undisputed Shinra Squats Champion. “For strength of body and mind, start by training your behind!”
Zack had fun making up stories about his adventures and aliases for Marlene. He sent the kid dozens of postcards over the years before he even realized it.
If you make it out to Cosmo Canyon, you’ve gotta ride the chocobos! They’re so fearless they practically fly out here!
Sometimes he even sent her maps.
If you follow this top secret map, it’ll help you find all the shrines for the cutest Summon of them all—Carbuncle!
But mostly, he told her stories he hoped would help her smile on a gloomy day.
And then, I kid you not, my friend faced off against a real-life robot to win the Queen’s Blood tournament in Kalm! What’s next? Card games on motorcycles? If you ever want to learn how to play, Spiky would be an awesome teacher!
“Whatcha got there, Zack?” Kunsel glanced at his buddy from the SOLDIER Lounge sofa.
“New postcard for Marlene!” the First waved it like a flag. “This one’s from Kalm, she’s gonna love it!”
“Mm. Maybe wait a week or two.”
“What? Why?” Zack frowned. He specifically took a set of missions out there tomorrow to mail the thing. “Dammit, did you beat me to it again?!”
In fact, he did.
Kunsel had sent Marlene a few postcards over the years. Her speech delay was relatable to the Second, who didn’t say a word himself until he was three.
You keep at it. He encouraged her. But remember everyone’s ‘voice’ is different, and that’s okay. I found my voice faster with technology and have a friend who talks enough for both of us!
You’re gonna do great things, I can feel it.
Kunsel’s letters did more than inspire just Marlene. It got Barret looking into tech that could possibly help his little girl communicate better. Predictably, he had no idea what he was doing, so he got Biggs, Wedge, and Jessie in on the project. Between the four of them, they made a video program that helped Marlene practice how to make different letter sounds.
“It was my best role yet!” Jessie beamed, starting up the first video for Marlene.
In each clip, the camera zoomed in on the former actress, who used all those skills to enunciate all her ‘lines’ at a pace she knew Marlene could follow. She left pauses between words (and later, sentences) for her little student to try them out.
“If it’s too tricky to make a /s/ sound with your tongue behind your top front teeth, try sticking your tongue tip down behind your lower front teeth,” Video Jessie reminded her audience with a smile. “Both ways can do the job, so don’t fret if one is too hard. Together, now: SSSS! …SSSS! Just make sure you don’t hiss too loud or you’ll accidentally summon some snakes!”
“Jessie! You can’t say stuff like that!” a voice called off-screen. “What if you scare her?”
“Marlene’s tougher than that, Biggs!”
“Just stick to the script, please…”
“Okay, Marlene! Time for rehearsal! Repeat after me: Silly…Snakes…Scare…Biggs!”
Marlene found it much easier to pronounce things when she could watch and rewatch how Jessie’s mouth formed all the sounds…not that she told Barret. Her favorite place for ‘rehearsals’ was curled up on her daddy’s lap, where she could properly guilt him into practicing with her.
Dear Marlene,
I hope you have made lots of friends by the time you get my letter. When I was younger, I didn’t have many friends at first either. It was hard for me to get along with the other kids my age when I finally met some, so I spent a lot of time growing happiness in my garden. After my flowers bloomed, I passed them around town to share that happiness. Not everyone liked them (I quickly learned about allergies the hard way), but those who did are now very close to my heart.
I sent you a packet of seeds to help you start your own garden. There should also be some pressed flowers, so you know what some of them will look like. My personal favorite are the yellow lilies because they symbolize joy and friendship.
Your Friend,
Maycomb Blume
Maycomb’s letter was one of Marlene’s favorites. Inside the envelope was a handful of tiny pressed flowers and some seeds for Marlene to start her own garden. Each seed grew into a beautiful yellow flower that greeted her every day. Barret found a sturdy crate for his little girl to stand on whenever she watered them. It was one of the few letters written to Marlene in her wall of postcards. She made sure to save the envelope to keep the pressed flowers in a safe place. It was also perfect for cold, dreary days when the smell of the flowers cheered her up.
As she cared for her flowers each day, she practiced saying their names until the words planted themselves in her heart. Some were a little tricky (who in Gaia’s name thought ‘sneezewort’ was a catchy name?) Some were silly (‘bear’s breeches’ was in fact not a clothing line aimed at a very specific demographic.) Marlene carefully pronounced every sound that called her garden home the best she could. When she had success with that, the gardener added her tools to the list of words she practiced daily—water, dirt, shovel, hat, sun… By the end of the growing season, she made a mountain of improvements.
While passing through Nibelheim, Zack and Cloud had an unfortunate run-in with an unseasonal blizzard. The inn was packed full of other unlucky travelers, so they decided to beat hypothermia with some good, old-fashioned stew and warm blankets at the Strife household.
Cloud wasn’t much of a talker, but Zack was blessed with the inability to shut up. Not long after Claudia piled Round 4 of blankets on the boys, he was telling her all about Marlene’s letters and recruiting another penpal for the cause.
“What’s her address, dear?” asked Claudia, picking up a pen.
Zack rattled it off with a smile. Although he still carried Marlene’s address in his wallet, he’d memorized it long ago.
Dear Marlene,
I found your letter on the beach just before the waters froze. It gets quite cold in Nibelheim, so I threw it back quickly. With some luck it will travel somewhere nice and warm. When it gets too cold to leave the house here, I make hot cocoa. Here is the recipe I’ve perfected over the years (the spices are the secret to the best cup every time). I trust you to keep it safe and enjoy whenever you need to warm up.
My son moved to Midgar not too long ago. He was also shy as a child, but always had a strong, courageous heart, as I’m sure you do too. If you see a young man who looks like he has a chocobo resting on his head, that would be him. Feel free to say hello, I’m sure he’d love to meet someone as kind as you.
Sincerely,
Claudia
While sipping her perfect cup of hot cocoa (cinnamon and peppermint really did make all the difference), Marlene made it her goal to find this chocobo head boy and greet him one day. She started practicing introducing herself in the mirror with no one to judge her but her hot cocoa. Like many things in life, it was hard at first, but marshmallows helped.
Sephiroth sent Marlene a Stamp postcard, having spent an undisclosed amount of time deliberating on what to get her. Inside the shop, catlike eyes flickered back and forth between three options with the same intensity as deciding battle strategies. Would it be Stamp riding on a tank or Stamp happily splashing around a puddle? Or maybe a surprise upset from Stamp delivering pizza? Options were weighed. Calculations were performed. Zack tried to keep a straight face at how seriously the guy was taking his new ‘assignment.’
“If it’s important enough for you to do so diligently, then it is important to me as well,” was all the General said.
Sephiroth spent the same amount of time composing as he did shopping. Zack wished he had a way to tell Marlene that Sephiroth prioritized her postcard over every SOLDIER mission report in Midgar. His postcard was very direct, but he did the fancy signature and full title when Zack asked.
Dear Marlene,
It has come to my attention that you are using a message in a bottle as a means of communication. In the future, I would advise against revealing your personal information to others, excluding emergency situations. However, your letter strongly suggests that you are more than capable of defending yourself and that you are recruiting a powerful army of friends to aid you. I believe you will do well putting those skills to work as an Account Manager or a similar career.
Regards,
General Sephiroth, Shinra First Class SOLDIER
Even if her father wasn’t thrilled about his sweet little girl receiving mail from Mr. Silver Elite Prettyboy General, Marlene’s class lost their collective minds during Show and Tell when she brought in a personalized letter from Sephiroth himself.
Dear Marlene,
Your letter in a bottle was the highlight of my vacation in Costa Del Sol! And it has been quite the eventful day. You see, this morning the entire beach was overrun with a dangerous Sea Worm infestation. Those horrible, slimy monsters were ruining the beach! They would have taken the city too, if not for our mysterious hero…
That’s right! I watched a real life superhero rush into battle armed with only an umbrella and nerves of steel. He bravely defeated every monster and made the beaches safe once more! We were very lucky Mighty Umbrella Man was there to save the day. I hope you get to meet him one day too. I’m sure he’d love to team up with you!
Sincerely,
Ebony Threads
“Yo, Cissnei!” a voice boomed. “You get that report done yet?”
The Turk tucked her note away. “If you’re trying to copy it, you’re too late. I already submitted it.”
“Yer’ kidding me!”
“Next time you should get your work done before you soak up the sun.”
“Oh, sure. Now you decide to be helpful!” her partner complained. “Any other life lessons?”
“Sunscreen,” Cissnei flashed a grin at the soon-to-be-lobster. “Try it sometime.”
Legendary Materia Hunter/Ninja Princess/Surprisingly Good Hacker Yuffie even got in on it and sent some kind of recruitment/materia donation request. She didn’t have the patience to write in Common yet, so it was written in overly aggressive Wutaian script, but was on a lovely pressed flower stationary with a rising Leviathan in the background, and that was what really counted.
Naturally, Yuffie delighted in bragging about sending the best letter of them all to Zack while he fought off the Dual Horn guarding the treasure she was hunting. Who could even hope to compete with hand painted dragons and cherry blossom trees?
And he took that personally.
Once he plucked the literal child out of the fiend’s stabbing range, he plotted his next postcard. Something that could compete with Leviathan’s magical garden… It had to be fancy, for sure. Maybe one of those holographic postcards…? In a nearby gift shop he found it—A glittery, pop-up card that played music when you opened it up!
If the amount of angry air punches Yuffie pummeled him with was anything to go by, he struck gold.
Dear Marlene,
I hope you like sparkles, because I had to fight a greedy ninja for this!
Marlene examined her wall with delight upon adding the latest postcard to her collection. It now spanned the entirety of her wall as well as a drawer full of beads, stones, recipes, flowers, feathers, ribbons, folding fans, and figurines. Taking a step back, her heart bloomed with the newest addition.
Bruno was not normally the type of kid who would resort to stealing, but when his little sister got sick and his grandfather couldn’t afford the medicine because some stupid monster ate his wallet, he had to take matters into his own hands.
Now if only he had chosen his target better…
“Look kid, I don’t even care about the money,” Zack confronted him. “There’s an address in there more important than gil!”
“No surprise,” Bruno mumbled to himself. “There was hardly any gil in there, anyway…”
It was on that day Bruno learned SOLDIERs have excellent hearing.
Zack ended up lecturing him about how stealing is wrong until a pinch on the arm from the flower girl/Professional SOLDIER Wrangler reminded him to hear the kid out when he was done.
“You promised…” Aerith gave him a look that could make flowers wilt as fast as she could grow them.
“Okay, okay…” he sighed, arms drooping at his sides. Zack wasn’t the kind of guy to go back on a promise.
Normally, Bruno was skeptical of Shinra employees. Seeing how easily Aerith handled the overgrown puppy made him feel more talkative. Once the hero heard the boy’s dilemma, he wasted no time in charging after the monster who thought wallets were an all you can eat buffet. The would-be thief hung back with Aerith.
“Is he…gonna be okay?” Bruno could only stare off in the direction Zack ran. Even the Neighborhood Watch struggled to keep up with all the monsters lately.
“He’ll be fine,” the flower girl assured him. “This is what he does second best.”
“Second best?”
“Mm-hm,” her eyes sparkled in that way they always do before one of her schemes.
“What’s he do best?”
Aerith told Bruno about Marlene’s letter in a bottle. About how Zack found it and continued it, so the little girl who wanted friends received one with every person Zack recruited to the cause. Bruno was impressed. Not enough that he’d admit it, but just the right amount that he accepted a copy of the address to write his own letter sometime. Zack was excited to hear about a new penpal for Marlene, but unfortunately forgot that he had monster guts on his hands when he clapped Bruno on the shoulder.
A few days later, Bruno had some spare time at school. He picked up a clean sheet of paper and began to write about taking his little sister to the Sector 5 park. As he wrote, he tried to remember if there was anyone at his school named Marlene. No one came to mind in his grade, so maybe she was younger? He took that into consideration.
Anyway, I don’t know how long you’ve been in Midgar, but I grew up here. If you ever need help, just go to the park and ask for Bruno.
That letter had been sent a few weeks back. Bruno had since bumped into Zack again and asked the SOLDIER why he never visited Marlene to make sure she got all those postcards.
“Maybe someday I will,” the ultimate penpal had laughed. “But I don’t want to take the magic out of it just yet. It might not be as much fun if she knows me.”
Adults were so weird.
Bruno now stood outside the address he had discovered. He didn’t have a postcard this time, but he brought his little sister Betty, who spent more time around cats than people and needed a playdate with someone human. She was also about Marlene’s age (if Zack’s memory was to be trusted). He knocked on the door. A shy girl in a pink dress answered.
“Uh, hi! My name’s Bruno!” he waved. “We live around here and saw you—”
“—Meowtastic!!” Betty shrieked, zooming in on the cat ear headband Marlene received from Zack’s latest letter. “Do you wanna play?”
Marlene ended up being the perfect balance to Bruno’s chill and Betty’s enthusiasm. After a few playdates (where Barret definitely did not cry like a baby in the alleyway to hide his tears of joy that his little girl was happily playing with friends), Marlene invited Bruno and Betty to her house. Her personal cheer squad busted out all the stops—Tifa made cookies, Jessie made pizza, Wedge made sparkly cat crafts, and Biggs patted Barret on the back.
By the time the kids made their way up to Marlene’s room, Bruno had no idea what to expect. Suddenly, he was bombarded by a rainbow of colors on the far wall. Marlene’s collection had grown like a paper garden, now spanning onto the ceiling where her daddy helped her hang postcards with images of sunsets, clouds, and harvest moons.
“Wow!” Betty spun around to see them all. “These are so pretty!”
“Thank you,” beamed Marlene, excited to share another happy memory with her new friends. “These are my treasures.”
Bruno was still struck speechless by the sight all around him. He almost felt like a baby bird hopping over to his mama bird’s outstretched wings. Like the words and pictures were ready to wrap a person up in a hug every time they entered the room. Did Marlene feel like this whenever she walked in?
One look at her face told him she did.
She looks so happy with her treasures… Maybe I’ll mention it to Zack the next time I see him. Maybe.
Marlene smiled. She might be a girl of few words, but she had a wall filled with adventures and photos of faraway places. Of pressed flowers and sweet perfumes. She had advice for taming chocobos next to recipes for honey cake. Letters that filled her heart with love and her wall with hopes and dreams. Marlene had proof that somewhere out there, people wrote to her because they cared. It was something she’d been searching for longer than a home.
Marlene finally had friends.