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Marlene wound her way through the chaos of early morning Edge. The backpack she carried was pink, with a fraying seam, and the sequinned outline of a chocobo.
Marlene was worried about that seam. After all, the backpack now held all her worldly possessions.
The pack was barely big enough to hold everything. Dried meat, that she’d taken from Cloud’s travel bag when he’d been busy cleaning his swords. Three of her favourite books, a choice that she had agonised over for hours. Her stuffed rabbit, Pogo. Half-a-dozen small yellow apples, that she’d saved from being turned into wine. A metal bottle, dented but still water-tight, that she had found tossed in a pile of scrap. A blue dress for when she got tired of her pink one. A pocket knife that Jessie had given her. The crayons Daddy had bought her for her birthday.
Two hundred gil, guiltily taken from the till at the end of the lunch shift, when Tifa had been busy wiping everything down in the kitchen, leaving Marlene alone to stack clean glasses back onto the shelves.
Daddy will understand, she told herself firmly.
It was easy to get lost in Edge, the streets hastily defined and constantly shifting. She stayed clear of the construction sites and stuck to the side-streets. Everything stank of tarmac and concrete dust, and Marlene crinkled her nose as she walked. She would never say it out loud, but in her secret heart-of-hearts she missed the acid-sweet scent of Mako, missed the green hue to the light. Edge was grey, grey, grey.
Even the side streets hummed with people. They were everywhere; carrying buckets of water and food parcels, scratching their heads over pieces of scavenged rebar, stripping down weapons. Children triumphantly carried bags of nails, bits of metal, rescued tools, and other salvage towards the big open space in the centre of the city, where they would exchange them for food and gil.
Marlene headed towards the shanties. The crowd of purposeful people fell away, replaced by slumped figures, tell-tale bandages covering their ‘stigma. Beyond the shanties were the grasslands, and that was where her journey had to start, following in her Daddy’s footsteps.
She practiced her hopscotch as she went, starting with the standard hop-jump-hop, then branching out into hop-hop-jump and hop-hop—hop-jumpjump-hop-hop-hop and this was fine until she hopped straight into a hole.
Marlene fell with a yelp, her ankle twisting as she went down; her bag slipped from her shoulder and the fraying seam gave way, spilling its contents into the mud.
“Oh—poop!” Marlene yelled.
This was the wrong thing to do, because it attracted the attention of two men who had been conferring quietly in front of a smashed water pipe, and who now turned to look at her. Both were dressed roughly, in torn jeans and brightly coloured vests. One had long ash-blonde hair, loose around his shoulders, and a ragged beard. The other had a mohawk that had once been green but was now mostly brown, and carried a nail bat on his back.
“That’s one loaded brat,” the one with a mohawk said.
Marlene crouched in the mud, and hastily started picking up her things. She had just grabbed her copy of Ella’s Space Adventure when the long haired guy loomed over her.
“Alright girlie, hand over the bag and this don’t have to get ugly.”
Marlene clutched the bag, and looked about. She spotted the pocket knife lying nearby and leaned forward to grab it, but the other man brought his boot down on the knife, grinding it into the dirt. Marlene hugged the bag even tighter.
“Look, kid, don’t be an idiot.” The long haired man held out his hand. “Just give me the bag and get out of here.”
“No!” Marlene climbed to her feet, her right ankle throbbing. “Go away!”
“Oh, screw this.” The long haired man reached out and grabbed the backpack.
Marlene hung on tightly as he tried to pull it out of her arms, her feet leaving the ground. She kicked furiously at his shin until he swore, and dropped both Marlene and the bag. She staggered, and turned to run, but the mohawk man yanked her back by the neck of her dress and she sprawled backwards into the mud, everything tumbling out of the bag for the second time.
Marlene took in a deep breath and then screamed as loudly as she could. She had a wild hope that Daddy might stride out from behind a lean-to or Tifa leap down from a pillar. Neither appeared, but somebody did slouch out of the shadows.
“Help! Help me—” Marlene started, but stuttered to a stop as the man strolled forward. Dark suit meant Turk. Red hair meant Reno. Marlene held her breath as she tried to figure out what to do.
“What the fuck are you doing out here?” Reno looked down at Marlene quizzically. She stared back at him.
Reno was not as scary as Tseng, who had been the most terrifying person Marlene had ever met, but there was still something predatory about him, his eyes sharp and too bright as they studied her.
On the other hand, Marlene needed to be pragmatic. If she was robbed she would lose all of her most important things. And whilst she had grown up listening to stories of all the ways that Shinra weren’t to be trusted, things were different now.
Even Daddy had told her: baby girl, we got a lot of work to do. Slow work, hard work. We need to build a new world, something better, and that means we gotta let go of the past. We gotta let go of that anger.
“Please help me,” she said.
His gaze shifted from her to the two thugs. “Real nice guys, she’s like, four fucking years old.”
“I’m five.”
“Five fucking years old,” Reno amended.
“Get lost prick,” the long haired man said, a large rusty knife appearing in his hand
“Seriously?” Reno swept his hands apart. “It’s nine in the morning, you’re gonna make me do this?”
The man with the mohawk nudged the other. “Uh, I don’t know, ain’t that one of Shinra’s suits?”
“Shinra ain’t nothing these days,” the long haired man said. “And this skinny asshole is outnumbered.”
“It’s like you’re trying to piss me off,” Reno said, and pulled his baton.
Marlene dropped into a crouch and put her arms over her head.
The fight came to her as sound. A guttural roar from one of the thugs ending in a sudden sickening crack and a scream. The other thug shouting: “You bastard!” The whistle of a bat swinging through the air. A high-pitched buzz, crackle and pop followed by a howl of pain and a smell like burnt sausages. Whimpers. The squelchy sound of someone trying to scrabble away in the mud. “No, no, no--” cut short with a gristly crunch.
Footsteps.
“Yo kiddo, you okay?”
Marlene huffed a sigh into her arms. “I’m okay. Are they… okay?”
A pause, then a muttered “Shit.”
There was a flash, the fiery smell of phoenix down, and somebody groaned.
Marlene took her arms away from her head and stood up. The two men were sprawled in the mud, twitching slightly. As she watched, one managed to roll over onto his stomach.
“Thank you,” Marlene said to Reno’s shoes.
“Uh huh.” Reno sank into a squat, his face coming into Marlene’s field of vision. “Now tell me what the fuck you’re doing out here in the Miseries all by yourself.”
Marlene bit her lip to stop it from trembling. She looked down at the torn backpack. Her blue dress was half hanging out, covered in mud. The packet of dried meat was lying on the ground, she picked it up and pushed it into her bag, avoiding Reno’s gaze.
She felt him watching her as she collected her things. She fished the pocket knife out of a muddy boot-print, looked at it dolefully, and said, “I’m going to find Daddy.”
“Where’s he gone? Thought you all were making and selling cheap-ass wine.”
“It’s not cheap, it’s affordable.” Marlene shoved the knife in her bag.
“Whatever you say, kiddo. But my question stands. What’s your Daddy up to?”
“He said he needed to figure out his place in the the world now. Now Shinra is gone.” Marlene looked back at Reno. “And that he needed to get his head straight so he could teach me how to keep my head straight.”
“What the fuck does that mean?” Reno made a face. “So he’s being a jackass, basically?”
Marlene scowled. “It doesn’t matter what you think. I’m going to go help him.”
“Help him how? Where did he go? Where were you going?”
“West,” Marlene said. “But first, I’m going to go to Billy’s Chocobo Farm and get a chocobo.”
“West?” Reno tilted his head. “Kiddo, you understand that ‘west’ is not a destination, it’s a fucking cardinal direction, right?”
“But—”
“And you know how far away that farm is? How many monsters are out there?”
“Yes, I—”
“Do you even know how to ride a chocobo?”
“No, but—”
“When did he leave, anyway?”
“Uh,” Marlene thought about it. “Two months ago.”
“Two months? You kidding? He could be fucking anywhere.” Reno straightened up, tapped his baton against his leg. “Does Lockhea—Tifa know you’re gallivanting around on this rescue mission?”
“…” Marlene turned back to her bag and examined the torn stitching.
“Yeah, that’s what I thought. Betcha she’s having kittens right now.” Reno snapped his fingers. “C’mon, you’re going back.”
Marlene hugged her backpack to her chest and glared at the Turk. “Fine. But only because my bag broke.”
“Whatever helps ya sleep at night, kiddo.” Reno turned and strode away. Marlene spared one glance for the thugs slowly groping their way upright and then ran after him.
She had to focus to keep up. He moved fast, cutting through the back streets in a convoluted route that, despite the twists and turns, somehow spat them back out at the Seventh Heaven in a fraction of the time it had taken Marlene to walk out to the tents.
Marlene ran past him and tried the door, which didn’t open.
“It’s locked,” Marlene said.
“She’s out searching for you,” Reno rolled his shoulders. “I ain’t wasting all day wandering around Edge looking for her. Move outta the way.”
Marlene stood back obediently, and watched Reno extract a piece of metal from his jacket and worry it at the lock for a second. The door clicked open.
“Your security is a joke.” Reno pushed the door open and stepped into the building.
“There’s normally someone here,” Marlene said, a little cross. Daddy had built the new Seventh Heaven, with Tifa and Cloud’s help, and she didn’t like anyone to criticise it. And whilst it wasn’t exactly the same as the first Seventh Heaven, it was still her home.
Reno glanced down at her and then looked around the empty bar.
“Those are photos of when Daddy and everyone saved the planet,” Marlene said, pointing at the pictures on the wall. “And those are pictures of mine and Daddy’s friends from before. I miss them a lot. And that’s the original Seventh Heaven, where I used to live, but I guess Tseng told you about it. It was the best place in the whole world!”
An odd expression flitted across Reno’s face, but then he turned away from her, so that all she could see was his back.
“Daddy made these chairs and tables,” Marlene said, as she climbed onto one of the chairs, and dropped her rucksack on the table. She looked around and spotted the poster on one wall. “That’s for Cloud! I made it, because he has a business now. Tifa is very proud of him.”
“Strife’s Delivery Service,” Reno said. “You draw that picture of him?”
“Yes! I did draw it.” Marlene dug through her bag and found her crayons. “Do you have a business? I can make a poster for you too.”
“I got a few different things going on.” Reno vaulted the bar and inspected the bottles standing on the other side. “Which one of these does Tifa drink?”
“The one with the picture of the bomb,” Marlene said. She looked at her crayons, the box covered in mud, and tried to wipe it off on her dress. From the bar, she heard the familiar pop of a bottle being opened.
“That’s 50 gil,” she said.
“I saved your ass and I don’t even get a free drink?” Reno took a swig from the bottle. “Fuck, this is fruity.”
“That’s Daddy’s recipe,” Marlene said, warningly. “What do you want on your poster?”
Reno dug into his pocket and tossed some gil onto the bar, before hopping up onto it and swinging his legs round so they dangled off the edge. He regarded her thoughtfully, and then shrugged.
“Sure, why the fuck not? Put at the top volunteers needed and then at the bottom write central plaza every day.”
“How do you spell volunteers?” Marlene asked, grabbing her red crayon.
“Do I look like a dictionary? Just make it up.”
“Right.” Marlene made her best guess, printing the letters as carefully as she could. “Central plaza… ”
“And draw some people in the middle. Put Rude in there, give him a hammer and make him look friendly. Don’t forget his sunglasses, yo, or he’ll get mad.”
Marlene drew furiously, her black crayon scribbling across the paper.
“And then draw me,” Reno said, “But make me ten times cooler than Rude. And give me a, uh, power saw. But also make me look friendly too, ‘cause we’re trying to rebrand ya know.”
Marlene used the red and black crayons to draw Reno.
“Put electricity round me,” Reno said. “‘Cause that’s always cool. And then put the monument in the middle of everything else.”
“What monument?” Marlene asked.
“It’s gonna be real inspiring,” Reno gestured with the wine bottle in the air. “A big plinth-y thing, with the lifestream, and then Midgar, and the meteor—I mean, it’s Meteorfall. You saw it, just draw that, but make it represent, like, the indomitable human spirit giving adversity the finger.”
Marlene grabbed her green crayon.
“And add some more people and maybe a digger.” Reno took another swig from the wine bottle. “That’ll probably do.”
Marlene drew Cloud, Tifa and Daddy as the other people, her tongue out as she concentrated. Reno jumped down from the counter and wandered around the bar, frowning at the photos on the wall and poking at the bits of decoration Tifa had put out on the tables.
“It’s finished!” Marlene added a final swirl of lifestream and held the paper up for inspection.
Reno blinked at it. “Wow.”
“You like it?”
“It’s a fucking masterpiece. I’m gonna frame it.” Reno took the drawing. “Man, that smile you gave Rude is intense, it’s bigger than his face.”
“It’s so he looks friendly,” Marlene explained. “We’re even now, right?”
“Sure, we’re even. Feel like I got the better end of the deal, honestly.” He grinned down at her. “You need a hand cracking some skulls again, you lemme know.”
Marlene wrinkled her nose, but his grin was contagious.
“You should come with me to find Daddy,” she said. “Then I won’t have to worry about the bad men or the monsters.”
“That’s gotta be one of the worst ideas I’ve ever heard.” Reno’s grin disappeared as he studied Marlene. “You’re planning on heading right on back out there, aint’cha.”
“I need to fix my bag first,” Marlene said. “And clean everything.”
“Hmm.” Reno frowned at her. It wasn’t an angry frown, Marlene thought. It was more like the expression Cloud got when he was working on Fenrir’s engine. But for some reason it made her uncomfortable.
“You can’t tell me not to go,” she said. “You don’t understand.”
“What don’t I understand?”
“He said he would call!” To Marlene’s surprise, her voice cracked as she spoke. She jumped down from the chair and turned away from Reno. She didn’t want him to see her fight back tears.
Because she loved Tifa, and she loved Cloud, but they didn’t laugh big and loud like Daddy did. They didn’t do the voices in Ella’s Space Adventure the way Daddy did, roaring and gentle by turn. They didn’t pick her up one handed like Daddy did. And she missed sitting on his shoulder, which was the safest place in the world.
“Most of the telecom towers are still down,” Reno said. “Need power to run ‘em. Phones ain’t shit once you get away from Edge.”
“What if he gets the ‘stigma? He’d be all alone!” She’d been worrying about that for weeks now. “He could be sick and we’d—” We’d never know.
“Yeah,” Reno said, slowly. “I can see why you’d be worried.”
“What if he never comes back?” It felt like a betrayal, so she whispered it. Marlene had attempted to broach this subject before. But Tifa had told her he’ll be fine, he’s tough, don’t worry! and Cloud had looked flustered and mumbled something about needing to run an errand.
It made her angry. Marlene was more than aware that sometimes people didn’t come back. She was well acquainted with that particular grief.
There was no reply, and so she sneaked a look behind her. Reno had come down to sit cross legged on the floor, resting his elbows on his knees.
“Nah, I get it,” Reno said. “It’s the not knowing, ain’t it?”
Marlene huffed. “So that’s why I have to go.”
“Here’s the thing, though. You getting stabbed by a punk ain’t gonna help you. Or him. You gotta be smarter than that.”
Marlene swallowed away the tears in her throat and turned around. “That sounds like you have an idea.”
“More of an offer, really,” Reno gave her a conspiratorial look. “You need intel, and lucky for you you ran into a specialist. Gimme a couple weeks, and I’ll tell ya what’s going on with that jackass. No sugar-coating, he got the ‘stigma, or he’s blown himself up trying to do something idiotic, I’ll give it to ya straight. But in return you gotta stay put right here.”
Marlene frowned. “Why would you do that?”
“Well.” Reno shrugged. “You been dealt a kinda shit hand so far, ain’t ya? ’S only fair.”
Marlene considered the proposal from all angles. “You promise you’re not just pretending you’ll look for him so I’ll stay here?”
“Promise.” Reno threw her a two fingered salute. “Turk’s honour.”
Marlene crossed her arms. “If you break your promise I’ll tell everyone your monument is stupid.”
Reno gasped and put his hand over his heart. “It’s not stupid! It’s gonna be so fucking poignant, it’ll make people weep and pledge to live better lives and shit like that!”
“If you break your promise,” Marlene said.
“Okay, okay. So it’s a deal then, yeah?”
“Yes. It’s a deal.” Marlene held out her hand. Reno shook it.
“Anyway,” Reno said. “Fun as this is, you should probably put Tifa outta her misery. You got a phone here? You wanna give her a call?”
“It’s upstairs,” Marlene said. “I’ll be right back.”
It took her longer to make the call than she expected, because when she told Tifa she was with Reno, Tifa went very quiet before hissing I’ll kill him and tell that bastard if he touches one hair on your head I will break every bone in his body.
Marlene had to explain the whole story from the start, and by the time she came back down to the bar the Turk had gone, leaving his empty wine bottle next to the gil on the counter.
The news came ten days later, in a manilla envelope shoved under the front door, her name scrawled across the front. Inside was a photograph of Daddy, sitting on a fallen log in a jungle, holding a sandwich and grinning at the camera. Marlene’s heart swelled up at the sight.
“Is that Barret?” Tifa asked, coming over.
“Yes! Daddy’s okay!”
“Huh,” Tifa said. “I didn’t think Reno would actually… can I see it?”
Marlene passed her the photo, and Tifa studied it for a long time.
“It is good to know Barret’s okay,” she said. “We can put the picture up on the wall, with the others.”
“Tifa? Can we go see the monument they’re building?”
Tifa considered this, her face pensive.
“Maybe,” she said, finally. “When they’ve finished. After we see if they’re serious about all this… rebranding. Then we can go and take a look.”