[fic] Final Fantasy VI: Game of Cards
Uh...yeah. I break my long non-fanfic silence to bring you a Final Fantasy thing...kind of short, but why not?

FINAL FANTASY VI
Game of Cards
[Other header stuff: PG, Sabin and Setzer, no spoilers]
Setzer and Edgar could be brothers, princes, the two of them - so refined and elegantly graceful, not rough and clumsy like Sabin Figaro.


GAME OF CARDS

"Game of cards?"

A snap of crisp paper against someone's palm, the smooth, silky sound of cards being shuffled, the popping of the logs in the fire. Sabin did not turn around, heard Shadow's soft voice behind him laced with annoyance: "That's the fifth time you've asked me tonight. I don't play cards."

"You don't know until you try," Setzer returned, and then the thump of a boot, a yelp and a growl. "And tell your damned dog to stop chewing on my leg."

"I told you, he eats people. He can't help his nature."

Sabin grinned to himself as his hands sought out another chunk of dead wood in the dark, two quick strokes of the axe cutting the log down to size. He was just gathering up the firewood in his arms when out of the corner of his eye he saw the flicker of a silver coat, firelight on polished boots.

Sabin said, "Need something?"

"Not particularly," Setzer said.

Sabin waited for a minute, but Setzer did not go on, so he shrugged, picked up the wood, straightened. "You want to help me carry this back to the ship?"

"Not particularly," Setzer said again, and Sabin turned to look at him: flaring silky coat over slender shoulders, silver hair neatly pulled back at the nape of his neck framing that narrow, aristocratic face, his violet eyes dyed now a turbulent black in the darkness of the trees under which they stood. Setzer and Edgar could be brothers, he thought suddenly, princes, the two of them - so refined and elegantly graceful, not rough and clumsy like Sabin Figaro. He looked down at his bare hands, leathery, scarred against the splintered wood; a peasant's hands.

"You know," he said after a moment, "it really is too damn funny."

Confused silence, and then Setzer said cautiously, "What is?"

"Edgar," Sabin said, grinning again, and moved away, his heavy boots crunching over dead leaves and brittle branches back into the little circle of firelight where Shadow was now crouched with his chin in his hands. Gau had curled up in a small ball, sleepily waving his hands back and forth in front of the flames with his eyes closed. He didn't see the others; they had probably gone back inside the enormous, silent monstrosity parked beyond the nearest grove of trees. The airship's engines were quiet now, and one lone landing light flickered at the entrance ramp - on-off-on-off - like a beady electronic eye.

"What about Edgar?" Setzer persisted testily, and Sabin said, "If you're going to be annoying, the least you can do is take some of this load off my hands and help out."

"This is a silk coat."

"Take it off and roll up your sleeves, then," Sabin said. "I thought being dirty was part of the gambler's manifesto."

He choked back a laugh at the look on Setzer's face, but the other man folded back his sleeves with a sigh and said, "Hand it over."

They trudged back to the Blackjack in silence, Sabin in front with Setzer trailing, cords of firewood slung over their shoulders, the wind rustling the leaves in the trees and the smell of fresh pine strong in his nostrils. The lights of Kohlingen were barely visible in the far distance to the east over the ridged hills. How long had it been since he had seen Figaro? he wondered, and then realized that it had only been days - less than two weeks - but each day feeling longer in total than those ten years after he had run away to Duncan, renounced his birthright and family to become the man he always thought he had wanted to be.

"What about Edgar?" Setzer said for a third time as they straggled up the hill to the side of the airship's fuselage. Sabin put down his firewood.

"I heard all about it. A coin toss, wasn't it?"

Setzer snorted. "Bastard. I supposed I had it coming, though - I make it a rule to check coins that I wager on, and I've had the two-sided trick pulled on me once or twice. But usually I can spot the swindlers from a mile off, and your dear brother just didn't seem to have it in him."

"Edgar's got a lot of surprises in him," Sabin said. He wiped his forehead. Below the hill, the fire was slowly smoldering itself out. "I fell for that little trick once myself."

"Oh?"

But Sabin didn't respond, didn't know at that moment, as Setzer watched him with those narrowed eyes, how to condense twenty years of history into a few sentences and convey all he wanted to convey about Edgar and Figaro and family, life and death and the need for freedom, although that last bit he thought that maybe Setzer understood without him having to say it. He looked up at the vast, curved black wall of the airship towering above them in the moonlight. "It was a long time ago," he said finally. "We're all right now, Edgar and me. We're okay. We got a bigger battle to fight, you know?"

"You sure picked a rag-tag army to fight it with."

Interceptor barked, a series of short, staccato notes that bounced off the ship's hull like gunfire. "A low blow from a self-proclaimed gambler who got himself tricked by a fake coin," Sabin said. "You got any better suggestions, let me know."

Setzer twitched the fold of his coat back with one hand. "I figure, what have I got to lose? I got nothing for or against the Empire either way. You lose, I still got the Blackjack. You win, well...the skies are that much clearer for a smooth ride. It's freedom for me either way."

Edgar would have taken offense to that sentiment, Sabin thought. Locke would have too, and Cyan and Celes; the four of them wound up so tightly in rights and wrongs, grudges and vengeance against a spectre of power that even they didn't quite understand. But all those years with Duncan had cleared his mind somewhat, given him a clearer understanding of where Figaro stood in this shifting game of kingdoms and allies, and he saw now that it was not so much about vengeance as it was about freedom: freedom for him to forgive his father, freedom for all those Espers locked up tightly in their crystals of Magicite, bound even in death, freedom for Setzer and his Blackjack across the skies of the world.

"I can see that," Sabin said. "That's all right, too. I think you could do worse than be here with us, right now, right here."

"Yeah," Setzer said. "I could. I could be with the Empire."

There was something hard and ugly in his voice. Sabin looked over at the gambler leaning against the dark hull of the airship, thinking that perhaps Setzer too had his own secrets hidden behind his eyes, thinking, Why did you really come with us? Was it really just about losing that rigged coin toss? "But you're not," he said instead, "so while you're here, you might as well play out the rest of your hand with us, rag-tag army and all."

Setzer almost laughed. He saw the man's eyes crinkle in the moonlight, and the tense moment passed, and the gambler said, "Why not? You need any more firewood, while we're at it?" He pushed himself back to his feet and started down the hill, and then paused and laughed aloud. One hand went to his pocket, and Sabin saw something rectangular and white flash into his palm, a glimmer of light against the darkness. "Or how about a game of cards?"