My Type, Your Type
By Laridian
"I thought you'd be with Celes."
Locke looked at Terra, her green hair free of its ponytail and still kinked where the band held it in place. "Well... she's not really my type."
Terra quirked her mouth in a small smile. "Sounds like something Edgar would say." She turned to face out over the desert sands, and rested her arms on the cool stone. Up here, at the top of Figaro Castle, you could see for miles, even in the early darkness, like now.
Locke gave a small laugh. "I suppose it does." He leaned on the stone wall next to her. "She's more Edgar's type, though."
"Oh?" Terra tried to remember if she'd ever seen Celes and Edgar bantering together. In some ways the events of the past year were still such a blur, after the war with Kefka, and now with rebuilding the world ahead of all of them. She wasn't sure how such a thing could be done, but it must. In fact, it had happened once already, hadn't it? After the War a thousand years ago?
"Well..." Locke picked ineffectually at the stone with a fingernail. "Edgar's a king..."
"No!" Terra said in mock-surprise.
Locke made a face at her in return, then smiled. "Well, Celes is a general. And I'm just a treasure hunter. We're not exactly in the same league, y'know."
"You could've fooled me. You made sure to be around her." Terra tried to keep her tone neutral.
"Terra." Locke shook his head and faced the desert. "Look, you were – away – for a while. But nothing ever happened between me and Celes." He looked back at her. "It's the truth."
The funny thing was, she thought, she believed him. If it had been Edgar, she wouldn't have, just because she would've expected a womanizing king to say such a thing. But Locke? Yes, she believed him.
"Besides," Locke said, "I figured you and Edgar were an item. He pursued you pretty heavily for a while there."
Now it was Terra's turn to laugh. "No, no, no! Edgar is nice – nicer than I thought when you first introduced him to me – but he's not my type either, I guess I should say."
There was more, but she didn't need to say it. Like the fact that she was half human, half Esper, and nobody knew if she could provide children for a king. That sort of thing was important for nations, to have heirs. And even if she could, would part-Esper children be accepted?
Of course, it was all rather moot, since she wasn't interested in Edgar romantically anyway. She suspected it was mutual. It occurred to her that General Celes Chere would be a better marriage match for the King of Figaro. She wondered if either Edgar or Celes had thought of it yet.
"We could go somewhere," Locke said, as if talking to himself. "I could show you new places – though I think we've been everywhere on the planet already." He looked at her out of the corner of his eye.
"We could go somewhere," Terra agreed, mimicking his expression. "But I've seen the planet, and everything that's happened to it. Maybe we could work on fixing it instead?"
Locke cocked his head on one side as if considering. "I suppose we could." Without breaking eye contact, he placed his hand on hers. "We saw the start of this together; I suppose we should keep going?"
Terra looked down at their hands. It was a nice feeling. Then she looked back at Locke, and saw the unspoken offer in his eyes, and a weird thrill leapt into her heart, new and at the same time old, as if to say Didn't you feel like this once before, when you first saw him, but you forgot?
"I suppose we should," she said, and laced her fingers together with his, and they both smiled.