Chapter 2: If My Friends Could See Me Now...
               --------------------------------------------

	"Lord Akfek, and Lady Sascha DelAubre," Cyan repeated.
	Mehnka nodded. "That's what they call 'em."
	"They have taken Albrook, Nikeah, Zozo, and Doma Castle?"
	"I think that's it," Mehnka confirmed. "But I could be forgettin'
som'thin."
	"Wait!" Jeff piped up. "Kohlingen!"
	"No, dolt! They lost Kohlingen!"
	"But they took it back! The soldier said so!"
	"No, the soldier said they were _plannin'_ on it."
	"No, he said they DID!"
	"Arrgghh! I ain't arguin' with ya anymore! Now, there was also
Thamasa."
	"Yeah, they took Thamasa!"
	"No, they were fought off!"
	"Nuh-uh! They won in the end!"
	"No they didn't!"
	"Yes they DID!"
	"Wait--Tzen, too. Didn't they take that?"
	"That was destroyed...I think..."
	"Moron! No it wasn't!..."
	Cyan sighed. He wasn't going to get completely concrete
information from the Zozoan pair. "What of South Figaro?" he asked,
putting an end to their argument.
	"Dummy!" Mehnka huffed at him. "_You_ oughtta know that it's
Doma's!"
	"I meant, was it attacked? Are the citizens--"
	"No idea. Just heard it was controlled by Doma."
	"They built a big wall around the town, or at least they planned
to, was all I heard," Jeff offered.
	Mehnka snorted. "Plannin' never means doin'! ...But y'know, maybe
it isn't Doma's anymore...I dunno..."
	"Then the New Empire is the new threat..." Cyan pondered. He felt
torn. Should Doma attack Figaro as was originally decided, or should
Doma's strength be saved to fight the Empire... and take the castle
back? 'No,' he thought. 'Figaro must pay! But... was Figaro truly
responsible for what happened, or was it only... Edgar? If so, an attack
on Figaro would be an attack on innocents.' "Edgar has fallen, and now
the New Empire has risen," he observed. "Thus I shall return to my
people..." 'And do what? Redirect the fight to launch in opposition to
two powers? Ignore one and battle the other? If only I knew how many
were guilty of the destruction in my kingdom...But I do know of those
who are guilty of its takeover.' "I... shall return to my people..." Cyan
stated again, as though it would help him sort out his troubles. 
	"Before ya do that, ya might want som'thin to eat," Mehnka
suggested, turning the slightly charred carcass over the fire.
	Cyan glanced at it. "May I ask of what species..."
	"Beats me. I found it runnin' around in here, so I squashed its
head. Probably worse than the stuff kings usually eat, but better than
nothin'."
	Cyan cringed. He was hungry...but not _that_ hungry. "And, eh,
speaking of what kings eat, I've had enough of it to tide me over, but
thank you for your generosity."
	"Yeah, yeah." Mehnka lifted the pole up. "I think it's done." She
took out a small knife to slice through the blackened flesh.
	Cyan wondered out loud, "If there is a new Empire, then perhaps
there are new Returners, too?"
	"I hope so. It would be so neat to join them and get to fight.
With real weapons!" Jeff bubbled as he chewed. Cyan pretended to be
preoccupied with something on the wall so he wouldn't have to watch
half-eaten food fall out of Jeff's mouth.
	"Yeah, kick some Imperial butt," Mehnka chimed in. "Hey..." She
looked at Cyan. "Yo! Garamondo!" He quickly looked back. "I bet YOU
wanna go out right now and kick some Imperial butt, right?"
	"I wouldn't put it that way," Cyan admitted, nearly wincing at her
words. "But yes... although I should like to know what happened to my
sword, my armor, my provisions..." 'Keyla, Butz, the Nautilus, South
Figaro, my people...' his mind went on.
	"Oh, yeah. Well, there are other thieves around here. They
probably stole your stuff. We can slash 'em up good on our way to
Doma!"
	"Our way to Doma?" Cyan wasn't sure whether he had put the
emphasis on "Doma" or on "our." 
	"Yeah! We'll come with you! To spy on the enemy! We'll start up a
Returner group! Just think of it! Jeff Biffen, Great Blitz Master of the
Returners!"
	"Shaddup," Mehnka growled, smacking him on the head. "Ya don't
know ANYTHIN' about blitz technique. Ain't impressing nobody..."
	"I do too! I read all about it in Jidoor!" Jeff declared angrily.
"When we were growing up. I read everything they had about it, every
single day."
	"Growing up... You grew up in Jidoor?" Cyan asked Jeff with
surprise.
	"Yeah, we ain't the usual Zozo batch. We lived in a middle class
family. We're talking _borderline_ middle class. On his fourteenth
birthday, these upper class cretins come force us to move out. They say
we're too poor to live in Jidoor. I say, 'Up yours, pigface!' And they call
all these buff guys to move our stuff onto a wagon and send us packin'.
So we go the only place you _can_ go... Zozo. But keep this in mind, bub.
We had a clean, healthy life once. We ain't the drunken liars that the
rest of the townsfolk are." With that, Mehnka fell back onto her stool,
with a "so there" look on her face.
	Cyan thought about it, and realized that he wasn't quite as
surprised as he had acted. Mehnka and Jeff having their childhood in
Jidoor would certainly explain why Mehnka had such an odd, mixed
accent, and Jeff didn't even sound the least bit like a Zozoan. At last,
Cyan spoke. "Thank you for clearing that up," he started. "Em...about our
traveling to Doma together... actually, I had in mind a more, eh, well-
rounded warrior ...a more _seasoned_ type..."
	Jeff jumped up. "Hey, I'M seasoned! I'm as spicy as can be!" He
slammed his foot into a toppled table, then cried out in pain.
	Mehnka rolled her eyes. "Ignore Beetle-brain. But watch this, and
_then_ tell me I ain't no good!"
	"I wasn't implying--" Cyan stopped short as Mehnka kicked out
her foot into the stool, leaving it in two pieces, then broke the legs off
with her bare hands.
	She looked up at the speechless man with the empty sheath and
grinned. "Gimme a sword, an' I'm a wreckin' machine."

*-*-*-*

	Cyan glanced back over his shoulder as the three trudged across
the open fields of Doma. The hut had long since passed out of sight. He
glanced at Mehnka. "Are you certain of--"
	"Look, we've been to the castle, alright? Just two days ago!" she
snapped.
	"Pardon me," he replied. "Say... you were in that house for two
days. How did you cover so much ground in just--"
	Jeff chuckled. "We, uh, _borrowed_ one of their weird
contraptions." He and Mehnka laughed. "It fizzled out somewhere. We'll
probably find it along the way. Hey, you're a king... maybe you could fix
it!"
	"Uh..." Cyan flushed a little red. "Actually, I'm not exactly a
wizard when it comes to machines..."
	"I know the feelin'," Mehnka sighed. "I remember the first time I
got to use a chainsaw... my third birthday party..." She drifted off into
a memory.
	"I'm good with them, though. I read all about them in Jidoor,"
Jeff said.
	Mehnka pulled out of her thoughts to put in, "Yeah, Jeff is sorta
an _aspirin'_ wizard..."
	For a while, they walked together in silence. Jeff finally broke it.
"There it is!" He darted towards a heap of metal. 
	Cyan and Mehnka quickly caught up. They came to the huge, olive
green set of armor which lay motionless in the dirt. Cyan gasped.
"Magitek armor!"
	"Oh yeah, THAT'S what it's called. Now I remember," Jeff said,
trying to push the mass to its feet with no success.
	Cyan looked at it hopelessly. "I'm afraid I can't be of any help in
its repair. But... how could you simply steal something of such great size
without being noticed?"
	"Well, first we stole _little_ sets of armor, like the soldiers wore.
Then even though we got suspicious looks, we managed to hop into this
baby and clang outta there. Good thing, too, cause at Doma they don't
take as kindly to thieves as they did in Nikeah."
	Jeff reached into the armor and pulled out the outfits from the
troopers. "I bet these'll come in handy when we get to Doma, huh?"
	Cyan nodded. "We certainly can't attack. I am unarmed, and
we're all unprotected. Infiltration, though, sounds like the beginning of a
plan."
	"I _hate_ plannin'," Mehnka groaned.
	"It's worth it," Jeff reprimanded. "Once we get inside, we can take
over. Then we'll be known all over the world as the Returners who saved
Doma from the Empire!" He threw his hands up in triumph. "Boy, if my
friends could see me now..."
	Cyan didn't hear Mehnka hiss at Jeff, "You don't have any
friends." His thoughts were drifting back to the airship ride after
Kefka's defeat. When the Falcon had crashed into the sea, he had been
lucky to wash up right near Doma. The helpless people immediately
looked to him as a leader. But even as he was coronated as the new
king of Doma, he kept worrying about what had become of his friends.
The little band of fourteen that defeated Kefka and gave new life to the
Earth. How had its members been scattered? Had all of them even
survived? And why had Edgar changed? This question plagued him
constantly. Edgar had always seemed intrusive, but good-natured. Was
he the only one of them who had been twisted to the side of evil?
 	Cyan stared at the two bickering Zozoans, Mehnka with the wild
hair and wild fury, and Jeff with the racy determination. So unlike Keyla
and Butz, both of whom he worried about as well. Keyla could still be in
South Figaro. But she might have ended up as far from it as he was.
Granted, it wasn't much of a distance, but if she had been thrown into
danger, who had been at her side? Slowly, Cyan realized that at last, he
fully and unquestionably trusted her. Celes had tried to teach him
about trust. But judging from how he had treated Keyla, she had failed. 
	Cyan's father had ingrained principles of distrust in his son.
Anyone could stab you in the back; therefore no one should be trusted.
Trust is to be built up to; not built upon. Keep your enemies at a
distance and your friends even further away. "Principles to uphold and
preach, dear son," his father once said. "By trusting all, one is like a
knight without his armor in the heart of a battle. By trusting a precious
few is the knight protected."
	"But Father," the young Cyan responded, "a knight must put his
trust in his liege and his fellows. Surely he cannot succeed alone,
trusting no one."
	"Exceptions to the rule, Cyan, and some endure. But do not think
a friend is among these; no, a fine art exists known as double
crossing..."
	Cyan then snapped back, "And trust is so fragile, I shan't ever be
able to place it anywhere but in my own care, eh, Father?"
	His heart suddenly filled with a longing to see his old friends
again. To have a round of poker with Setzer, or tell the children a story,
or have a harmless duel with Locke, or have a comforting talk with Terra,
or hear Celes sing. As much as some of them had gone out of their way
to get on his nerves, he fiercely desired to see them all again, if only
just to make sure they were alive and well. Edgar... was gone forever; the
Edgar he had known and fought with. But he felt sure that somehow,
someday, the Light Warriors would come back together once more. They
might be destined to meet in the fight against the New Empire. Cyan
decided that as soon as his homeland was secure, he would leave to
search for them...and for Keyla.
	'If my friends could see me now...'
	Cyan only wished they could.