Eleanor - 2002
Corel at the end of summer always felt hotter and dustier than ever, and usually town meetings were held indoors in the headman's living room. It was no inconvenience, since there weren't so many people passionate about replacing the burnt-out lights at the railway station or finding enough money in the town budget to buy trumpets for the school music program.
Eleanor rarely went herself, though Dyne kept her apprised.
"Our little guy might be a virtuoso!" he'd declared.
"And if it's a girl?"
"Our baby girl's lungs're gonna be just as strong."
Today was different. Nearly everyone was out, converging on the town square. Her fool husband would've been among the first there if he hadn't decided to be an overprotective idiot and hold them all up. Eleanor wasn't having it.
"An' will there be chairs, at this meeting?" she asked him, hands on her hips.
"Well, yeah..." Dyne admitted, scratching his head. "'course there's gonna be chairs..."
"Then I think I can manage it, despite my delicate condition." She had barely started to show. As quick as things got around in Corel, there was still half the town that didn't even know she was pregnant.
"It's just," Dyne went on, even though his expression said he knew he was just digging himself deeper, "you know we're expectin' a lot o' strangers an' plenty o' heated debate. I don't wanna stress you out with all that."
Eleanor turned to Myrna, who'd stopped by thinking to walk over with them. "See, this is a warnin' to you. Barret's gonna be even worse when it's your turn."
"Don't I know it," she chuckled, and they both stepped from the porch with the expectation that Dyne would come along quiet if he knew what was good for him.
Barret, tasked with welcoming the southern delegation, would already be there. It was a wild thing that they should play host to anything you might call a 'delegation' at all, and there were more than one of them. Much as they'd all felt something big brewing over the years, they were simple folk. Corel didn't feel like the kind of place where big things happened.
And then Shinra had shown up last week, delivering a proposal for a reactor up in the mountains, nearly right on top of their mines.
Since the war had ended, a lot of people had been in and out of Corel. The blockades had come down, and coal had reasserted its value. Meanwhile people in the south had come to tell them there were better ways to live than coal, and people from Shinra had also come to tell them there were better ways to live than coal. Despite her husband's dedication to Corel's history, Eleanor thought there was truth in that, but she believed one group meant it in a very different way from the other.
It wasn't just a reactor proposal. It was Shinra asking the question: which version of the future did Corel believe in, and were they willing to fight for it?
The debate Dyne had mentioned wouldn't be about whether they wanted the reactor; the few who'd had anything positive to say about it had already been scolded into silence. But could they afford not to want it?
There were a lot of people in the square, and a lot of outsiders--though not so many of them total strangers. Smiling cautiously in the face of Barret's boisterous enthusiasm were the herbalist Ifalna from Gongaga, her wife, and their grown children--and her wife had never looked old enough to have a grown son, but there was no denying the resemblance. Nearby were those creatures from Cosmo Canyon who'd startled everyone when they first showed up years ago, but it had long since become the sensible reaction to invite them in for a glass of lemonade.
The folks from Wutai were new, and they stood out in looks and dress: a woman with a confident bearing and a girl who rocked on her heels, eager for things to get started. Eleanor questioned the wisdom of involving such a young girl, until she noticed the girl's hands flashing in translation whenever someone spoke to the woman.
There was a Wutain man, too, though he didn't dress like them and stood a bit apart from everyone, so that she thought maybe he was some sort of bodyguard. It would make sense, Eleanor supposed, for them to have a bodyguard in a place Shinra had set its eyes on.
There were indeed chairs--the ones they brought out for celebrations plus mismatched extras scrounged from nearby houses, still not enough for this crowd--and Eleanor plopped herself down in one. She wasn't about to admit it to Dyne, but the heat had been hitting her harder these days, and she was glad of a rest after the walk over. Myrna took the seat next to her and flashed her a knowing look. The summer had been treating Myrna well, but she knew all about hiding symptoms from her husband when she didn't want to be fussed over.
"Seems like damn near the whole town's shown up," Dyne remarked, standing on her other side.
"Ain't that what you were expectin'?" Eleanor asked.
"Hoped for it, hoped for it. Still somethin' to see."
She could tease him about it, but the gravity of the situation was plain in front of them. Corel's future was at stake and they all knew it.
As the last few people trickled in, the village headman moved to the front of the stage that was more accustomed to accommodating bands and dance callers. He quieted the crowd and introduced the different groups of out-of-towners who occupied the stage with him. It wasn't until then that Eleanor really noticed the two from Nibelheim; stout country folk, their clothes weren't much different from anybody in Corel. Maybe just a little less dusty.
"I'm sure everybody here knows about what Shinra's come to 'offer' us," the headman went on. "It'd mean the end of life how we know it: our mines won't be safe to work with the reactor bein' built so close, an' our coal won't be worth much once it's done. They say we'll all get fancy new Shinra jobs to make up for it, but we heard enough stories by now to know they ain't so good at keepin' promises. The worse part is, they don't seem to take real well to bein' told 'no' neither."
"I'm sure we don't wanna be bullied into givin' up our land," Dyne spoke up first, his voice loud and clear over the crowd.
"We ain't Wutai," said another man; Lloyd, she thought, though she couldn't see him from where she sat. "We don't got ourselves an army. It's just us here."
"That isn't entirely accurate," offered Sebuna from the stage.
"We plannin' to throw one ninja an' a couple dogs at 'em?"
The little Wutain girl glared at him as she translated, and then her mother spoke. Kasumi's voice carried an accent Eleanor had never heard before, and she spoke with the steadiness of someone used to being listened to. It wasn't hard to believe she'd been a commander during the war. "It isn't about numbers with Shinra," she said. "It's about tactics. What do you have that they don't? A love of your land, a knowledge of your land. Some of you can fight, more of you could be trained, but your best chance lies in harrowing them outside the battlefield."
"Guerrilla tactics, you mean like," Barret surmised.
"Exactly."
"We still don't got any training at that," said Lloyd.
"We could accept the reactor--" Barret began, and folks in the crowd started to shout him down, echoes of the words bandied about town the past few days. Barret raised his voice. "Hey, hey! I ain't sayin' what you think I'm sayin'! We accept to stall. Takes time to build a reactor. Takes work, hard work, especially up in those mountains."
Beside her, Dyne was nodding in understanding. "Plenty o' chances for sabotage, too, an' it won't be hard makin' it look like accidents."
Eleanor looked up at him. "They'll figure it out eventually, won't they?"
She wanted to support them, but they were veering off half-cocked. Shinra could be fooled for a little while, but they weren't stupid, and Corel was unprotected.
On the stage, Ifalna stepped forward. "You're afraid of bringing them down on yourselves," she said. Unlike Kasumi, her voice faltered as she went on. "You're not wrong to be afraid. Shinra is strong, and this village isn't really defensible..."
Her daughter Aeris picked up what she seemed reluctant to say. "You may have to leave Corel behind, for a little while."
A clamor rose up again in the crowd, some protesting the idea and others just stunned by it. Eleanor felt the notion like a slap in the chest. Leave Corel behind? Everything she'd ever imagined for her future happened here. Her baby would come just as they bid farewell to winter, and Eleanor meant to raise it in the house she shared with Dyne, the same one he'd grown up in. All the firsts would happen there--first steps, first words--
But if Shinra came down on them, then all those firsts were at risk, weren't they?
"Leave Corel behind?" Myrna wasn't the only one to repeat, but it was her voice that struck out clearest as the initial outrage settled. "For what?"
"Stalling them isn't a bad idea," said Sephiroth. Eleanor found it hard to get a read on him; he seemed to steel himself to speak. "It gives you time to find places to hide where Shinra won't think to look. Time to fortify them, and to send your kids someplace safe from the fighting. Gongaga's prepared to be a place like that."
"An' are you prepared to do anything more than that?" Dyne challenged him.
Sephiroth met his gaze levelly. "I mean to fight here."
"Great," Lloyd muttered, "two dogs, a ninja, and a weirdo."
"Trust me, one weirdo will make a difference," said Sephiroth with a certainty that made Eleanor uneasy.
Lucrecia stepped in. "We're committed to this fight," she said, "but like you, Gongaga doesn't have a lot of trained fighters. We'll help however we can, but the greatest thing we have to offer is safety. Outsiders don't know the jungle. You can fight without worrying about your children."
"Cosmo Canyon may also be a place of safety for you," added Sebuna, her steady voice calming the last few grumbles. "But I understand your distrust. When war raged across Wutai's lands, what did any of us do but shut our doors and look on? The people of Cosmo Canyon are not warriors like myself, but this time we are determined that our doors will be open. You will not go ignored."
"You still want us to leave our home..." said Myrna.
"I don't like it," Eleanor spoke up, and she didn't. She didn't like it at all. "But we need someplace to go, if it comes to it. If Shinra troops come marching on Corel, I don't wanna be collateral against our men."
There was a look on Lucrecia's face, a tightening of her mouth, that suggested to Eleanor that being held hostage might not be the worst thing that could happen, and Eleanor felt it hit her gut that they weren't really understanding how terrible Shinra could be. Her hand settled across her abdomen. There were more important things than land, and suddenly she couldn't understand why Shinra would fight so viciously for it. She'd never lived anywhere but Corel, it was home, and yet if it came down to it, she'd let it burn to protect her baby.
None of it meant a damn thing to Shinra, so why?
"This ain't gonna be no easy thing," said Dyne, "standin' up to Shinra. We all knew that, right?"
There were murmurs of agreement from the crowd.
"I want to offer you more than tactical advice," said Kasumi, "but it's still being discussed. Shinra won't wait long for your answer, and in the opening months, you will have to rely on your own strength."
"But we stall, an' there's more help on the way?" Barret asked her.
"Maybe," Dyne was the one to answer. "She's sayin' we can't depend on it."
Eleanor wondered if they could hold out on their own. What did they have that Shinra didn't? Shinra's reporting on the war had described the Wutains as hiding in the mountains like vermin; Corel had mountains of its own to hide in. It scared her to imagine Dyne camping out in caves and old mine shafts, leading strikes against Shinra troops.
But maybe it scared her less than the thought of him defeated, allowing Shinra to move in for fear of challenging them. She worried he'd lose some part of himself if they didn't make a stand here. They might be okay, Corel might be okay, but they wouldn't be the home and husband she imagined as her future.
"Ain't all this a little much?" Delma spoke up. "Are we so sure Shinra's gonna come down on us like this?"
"Right," agreed Glen beside her. "Maybe we just turn 'em down an' that's that."
A small current of agreement rippled through the crowd, and Eleanor could hardly fault them. They had all come to this meeting knowing there would be consequences to their answer, but leaving Corel altogether was too drastic to be real.
On the stage, Claudia elbowed Mayor Lockhart, and he cleared his throat. "I'm afraid that's just wishful thinking," he said. "The fact of the matter is... a few days after you told Shinra you needed time to think over their proposal, a troop ship docked at Costa del Sol. They're... preparing to force the issue."
There was a short silence, and then Delma demanded, "How do you know that? How can you know that?"
"Shinra's in and out of Nibelheim all the time these days," Claudia said with a shrug. "Sometimes they're forgetful with their equipment." They'd stolen Shinra equipment right out from under their noses. And she said it so flippantly.
"We've had access to their communications here in the West for a while now," Lockhart added. "Some things they don't risk sending over these channels, but... we mean to relay to you everything we pick up."
"So they're already bringin' soldiers to Corel...?" said Maude. Her voice was loud, but small somehow. Her unease threatened to settle into the crowd.
Eleanor felt Dyne's hand squeeze her shoulder, and then he let go to make his way to the stage.
"Shinra ain't comin' down on us, not yet," Barret was saying, confident and assured. "We got a plan, remember? 'No' ain't gonna be what they hear from us. We're gonna make 'em believe we all sat down today an' had ourselves a good debate, an' we decided we best get with the times. Bring on the Mako! Corel wants to be part o' the future. An' while they're shakin' our hands and smilin' in our faces, we'll be gettin' ourselves ready for when those soldiers do come."
Dyne stepped up beside Barret so he could look out into the faces of the gathered townsfolk. "I know you're all scared," he said. "Maybe you're still thinkin', 'we ain't Wutai.' An' that's true, we ain't. We ain't never been nothin' but a bunch o' good common folk who know how to pull together when the time calls for it. You've all heard the stories, but you ask your granddads again 'bout the rallies. You ask 'em to tell you 'bout the time when they stood together and made Corel ours. Shinra ain't nothin' but another boss tryin' to move in, an' we're gonna show 'em what we think o' that!"
"Yeah!" someone shouted. The mood was shifting, buoying up. Eleanor wanted to ride with it, but Dyne was the one up there on the stage, leading them. He'd be leading them into this fight, and she wasn't going to say a thing to stop him, because she knew it was what he needed to do.
"We'll show 'em!"
Myrna reached over and took her hand, gave it a squeeze. Barret would be out there, too. Gods willing, they'd both come back to tell their own stories.
"If we gotta leave this town behind," Dyne went on, "nobody doubt we'll be back again. Anything the Shinra try to take from us, anything they tear down, we'll come back an' we'll build it right back up again, 'cause that's who we are. We're gonna stick together on this an' come out the stronger!"
More cheers answered him this time. Dyne's grinning face turned to Eleanor, and she smiled as broadly as she could, for him, across the crowd. She couldn't fight alongside him, she couldn't be with him, except like this, across a distance. She was going to believe it hard, that he'd come home.
The meeting began to break up. A dozen different conversations started around them as people collected their borrowed chairs and headed home, full of speculation about the coming months. Dyne and Barret stayed up with the village headman and the usual suspects, no doubt working out the finer details of how they would deliver their answer to Shinra.
Eleanor got to her feet, too, wanting to do something. All she could think of was the house she might be leaving soon. She could take things with her, keep safe their family histories, even if the walls that held them now might be forfeit.
Myrna had stood, too, but her attention was still in the direction of the stage. "Ifalna," she greeted, and Eleanor turned to see the herbalist approaching.
"Myrna," Ifalna replied, and she offered Eleanor a nod as well. "I was glad to see you here. You've still been doing well?"
Myrna nodded. "Thanks a lot to you, I'm betting."
Ifalna smiled. "I did bring you more medicine, while I'm here."
"'preciate it. Though it looks like I may be down in your neck o' the woods before long."
"It does seem that way," Ifalna agreed ruefully. "I wish it weren't necessary, but people are what's important. You can make home anywhere, as long as you have them."
"How did an herbalist get so involved in all of this anyway?" Eleanor asked, half-teasing, half-serious. They were all common folk getting involved, weren't they?
Ifalna's smile was brief. "We're not at all from Gongaga, you know," she said. "Not originally. We've left many homes behind, because of Shinra."
"You were dissidents?" Myrna wondered.
"In our way, I suppose." Ifalna glanced back towards the stage, where her wife remained listening in on the discussion. "Lucrecia used to work for Shinra, a long time ago. We... took something from them, when we left. Something I've no doubt they would like back, even now."
Eleanor wondered what they could have taken. Company secrets? An elixir of youth? She wanted to ask, but the caution in Ifalna's voice told her she had all the answer she would get. Whatever it was, it was still so valuable to them that even among allies, she wouldn't risk revealing it.
That sounded more dear than company secrets.
"But you don't regret it?" she asked instead.
"Not for a second." Ifalna's smile returned. "It's going to be hard, but you're not alone in this. Look at all the people you have around you."
Knots of people still gathered around the square, as many as for any celebration, and it was Myrna who said, "Bet Shinra's nothin', compared to this."
But they all turned at the sound of raised voices near the edge of the square. People stepped out of the way as that Wutain man manhandled a villager towards the stage.
"What's goin' on?" Eleanor asked.
Ifalna was the first to relax. "Vincent wanted to be on the lookout for Shinra infiltrators. It seems he's found one."
"A spy?" Myrna said incredulously.
It sounded wild, but as Eleanor craned her neck to get a better look, she realized she didn't recognize the man. For sure, he dressed the part of any man from Corel, with muscles that might have been honed in the mines and clothes faded with dirt, but even if Eleanor forgot a name here and there, she knew every face in their town. She had never seen his before.
"...we really are about at war, aren't we," she said. Espionage was for war.
"Not quite yet," said Ifalna. "But they're making overtures."
"Let 'em," said Myrna. "Dyne's right, we ain't gonna let these people bully us."
"I'm glad," said Ifalna. Her smile was soft, but genuine. "For a long time, I didn't really expect to see anyone standing up to Shinra.."
"Well, it's scary, all right," Eleanor confessed. "Feel like I'm just gonna start shakin', if I think about it too hard."
"Will you come to Gongaga?"
"...maybe. I know Dyne's gonna want me outta harm's way, an' I don't wanna bring him to any. But I wasn't ever thinkin' o' bein' apart, right now. So not just yet."
Ifalna glanced down at her stomach, as though she knew. "I understand," she said. "You want as much time as you can get."
Eleanor didn't know the story behind Sephiroth and Aeris's fathers, and as far as anyone in Corel was concerned, it didn't matter. They may as well never have existed. But she wondered now, just for a moment, what more Ifalna had left behind. If one of her homes had been with a man, if he'd fought for her to be able to find the one she had now.
She wouldn't imagine it like that. She just wouldn't, or she'd never stop shaking. Shinra troops might come marching through these streets with their minds bent on destruction, but she wouldn't be here, and neither would Dyne. He was smart, and strong, and they'd never catch him. When it was all over, they'd make their home together again, and raise their child on stories of the coming months and how brave he'd been. Dyne would tell those stories himself, and Eleanor would just laugh when he embellished.
Later, when she said goodnight to Myrna on the porch, Eleanor went inside and began to pack.