FicWad

"Hey. You on watch?"

Kiros looked up when I spoke, and then shook his head. He'd been like that, basically since we had left Deling City. Not that I really blame him or anything-being shipped off was a crappy way to get back to your country, and it wasn't as if anybody on Centra was real pleased with a Galbadian brigade taking up residency in their backyard.

I sat down next to him, looking through the strange Centran underbrush and out over the bluff we were all situated on.

"It's nice."

"It's a desert," he said, picking at a broken nail. I shrugged a little, curling my arms around my knees. "Why are we here?"

"Because Caraway told us to storm our asses out, and so we did." I grinned at Kiros a little. "Gotta preserve, uh . . . whatever it is we're preserving . . . for good and wholesome Galbadia."

"If we taking stuff out of Centra," he said, very quietly, pulling up pieces of dirt and crumbling them in between his fingers, "then soon we're going to be stationing troops here. And then we'll set up a base, and start encouraging the Centran to vote for Galbadian ideals in open elections. After that, Galbadia basically owns Centra. Like we own Timber, and Winhill, and like we want to own Dollet and FH. Like we did own Trabia."

"So why did you decide to help the people who are taking over the world?" Okay, maybe that was a little vindictive. But c'mon: he was talking out of his ass.

"Because I thought it was the right thing to do." He shook his head a little, sighing. "Centra doesn't have a military, and I wasn't about to try and get into Esthar to join them; bunch of crazy fucks."

"You think too hard, Kiros."

We were quiet then, listen to the buzz hum of wind whispering through short, scrubby grass and watching the clouds drift over the dark night sky.

"How long have we been here?"

"An hour," Kiros muttered, resting his head against his knees. I snorted and shook my head, giving him a firm thwack to the shoulder. "You mean on Centra? I don't know. A few days? Let's see: we left the City on the twenty-ninth, it takes two days to get from FH to the North Coast, and then we finally bunked down tonight, so . . . it's the First."

"Really?" I laughed a little. "I'm gonna be twenty-eight in two days."

"Goodie for you." I gave him a sad little look and grabbed one of his hands, pulling it toward me. He huffed a little, rolling his eyes. "What are you doing?"

"Kidnapping you. I'm going to torture you and find out what you did with Kiros Seagul." It got a little laugh out of him, but nothing too great or serious. I whined a little, shoving him in the shoulder with my other hand. "C'mon, Kiros. What crawled up your ass and died?"

"I'm just tired, Laguna. It's been a long couple of days."

"Are you still mad at me?"

"No, Laguna, I'm not mad at you. Why would I be? I told you to go talk with her." I poked him in the side. Several times. "Stop it."

"Talk to me."

"There's nothing to-/stop poking me/."

"C'mon. We've got time. Tell me why you're still mad."

"I'm not-would you quit it?" It was probably a really bad idea to piss off somebody who could break every bone in my body. But what can I say? I'm a risk taker. I let my fingers go to town, knowing just where he was ticklish. He snorted on his laughter, arching away from me; we fell to the ground, and I grinned triumphantly at him as I sat on his stomach.

"You're much more comfy than the ground."

"Thanks. Get off."

"Not until you talk to me," I sang softly. He gave me a short little look, then shook his head.

"If we make it through all this-."

"/When/," I corrected him forcefully. I hated when he tried to make it sound like we were going to die.

"/If/," he reiterated, "we make it through all this, I'll tell you why I was upset. Okay?"

"I'm holding you to that. So don't you dare die on me."

"Yeah, yeah."

And for a very long time, we just sat and watched the stars and waited for the morning to come.