Relik had asked Wyva what would be the simplest way to describe Logun. The Alven responded that he was quick.
After being around the man for just over three hours, Relik had to agree. For this was the quickest he had come to the conclusion that a person was a pain in the ass.
Logun had marched them to the Temple's transit hub with the unearned confidence of a king.
Wyva found it amusing.
Relik felt embarrassed on their behalf.
They stalked around to find what was considered a familiar bellman.
Over the last few weeks he learnt that all major Temples had transit hubs where bellmen worked. In these hubs they had several prewritten magic circles that they would simply activate on use. Once a destination was decided they would find an available magic circle and teleport them there. The only drawback being that they couldn't teleport you if they couldn't calculate for your mass and of course your Iké.
"I am not sending that kid through Logun," the bellman of their choice objected, "his energy is constantly fluctuating. He'd show up in Potaan either a bomb or a puddle of soup."
"Soup?" Logun had roared, leaning over the counter until his ale-brushed breath made the Bellman flinch.
"I remember when Rému was a progressive city! Now it's a place where a man's disabled son", he jerked a thumb at a mortified Relik, "has to walk for a year just to see our most trusted partner in trade! You're a glorified doorman who's one responsibility is getting people from here to there; and you're admitting that you can't even do that right."
The Bellman didn't blink. He simply stamped a parchment and slid it across. "You're banned from Temple transit for thirty days. Security will escort you to the stairs."
"I don't need your circles or your expensive needles!" Logun spat, grabbing the parchment and crumpling it. "We'll go to the port town and take a ferry. At least then we won't have to haggle with the ocean!"
Relik's regret seemed to deepen.
How was this man allowed the position of responsible adult.
________________________________________
The trio had been on their feet for over twenty four hours and were still, legally under Rému jurisdiction.
They had walked all the way from the city, travelling on foot through the rarely used highways of the Empire. Wyva had given up before they had left the city and Relik only cared about whether or not they were headed in the right direction.
It was funny to him that he was quicker to trust Jace, someone who was just as inexperienced as he was, than he was to trust Logun.
Not to mention that the man had a drink on hand the entire journey.
They arrived at a cliff edge overlooking a lagoon. The waves of the southern see calmly washed against this side of the isthmus.
Before this Relik had grown up in the mountains with the largest body of water being a ravine. Within the last month he had been to a port city and now a port town.
He appreciated that experience.
It wasn't a little town, by any means but after seeing the vastness of Rému, everything else seemed mediocre.
Rému was the main reason the town existed in the first place, as it served as a port town for Remu.
Though it was a large coastal city, being only three days away from the Shink-Ra territory meant that Remu was geographically isolated. If ships were to be sent directly to Rému's ports they would need to pass through a strait that was controlled by their greatest enemy.
Getting exotic food and wine was not worth the risk of an attack.
Thus this town was born so that shipments from the south could be received and then sent with convoys to Remu.
Logun had handled all of their arrangements getting them a place to sleep for the night as well as food and tickets for the trip to Potaan.
Sadly, the ferry would not leave until the next morning, a fact that Relik suspected Logun had engineered specifically to facilitate a bender.
He had taken them to a pub, a cavernous structure made of bleached driftwood and whale bone. It smelled of brine, old grease, and a century of spilled alcohol.
Upon entry their ears were bombarded with the sound of music being played to the backdrop of loud conversations.
Relik looked back at the doorway lost in wonder. Rightfully so, because even though there were no doors he heard nothing until they were inside.
He ran a quick check sticking his head out and into seemingly dead silence. Then pulled his head in to be bombarded once more.
"It's a seal," Wyva explained, "keeps all the boise inside."
Logun guided them over to the bar brandishing three stools for them to take a seat to his left. An Hurc woman who was somehow broader than doorway to get into the place.
"Logun!" she bellowed, her voice shaking the rafters. She hauled him into a hug that audibly cracked the mans spine.
"Three years huh! I thought the Empire finally found a cage strong enough to hold you."
"They haven't made the metal yet, Bara," Logun grinned, slapping a handful of coins on the scarred wood.
"Never! Drinks are on the house for the man who mentored my kids," Bara countered, slamming three foaming mugs onto the bar. She looked at Relik and Wyva. "He took my two oldest under his wing, one's a hand the other's and Insinyur, both of 'em from port town. When the third passes the trial, Logun's promised to sharpen him, too."
Logun knocked back his ale in one jagged gulp, his eyes losing some of their bloodshot haze. Wyva, ever the opportunist, took two sips of his drink before vanishing into a corner where a group of local girls were laughing at a card game.
Relik sat on the high stool, his knees tucked in. The clothes given to him still a size too big.
Too lost in his own thoughts to truly accept the offered relaxation. He bad tried to distract himself by judging Logun this entire time, but they were on his way to be questioned by a grieving parent. Not to mention that said parent was the most powerful person in the walls of that city. That was both physically and politically.
For him any moment wasted in lapse was a moment he could use to prepare himself for whatever happened after the boat ride.
"Stop wallowing," Logun nudged him, his voice low.
"Easy to say when you know for a fact you'll be alive by the end of the week."
Logun shrugged but ultimately agreed.
"By the way. Jabaani mentioned you've got some unique seals, forgot to ask you 'bout 'em on the road. Let me give 'em a look."
Relik recoiled, instinctively twisting his face in disgust, "Here?"
Bara leaned over the bar, polishing a glass with a rag that looked like a pirate's sail. "Nobody cares about your secrets here, kid. We've all got 'em."
Relik hesitated, then slowly pulled his shirt over his head.
The silence that followed was instantaneous. Even the group playing instruments at the corner had stopped in favour of staring at him. It was as though someone had sucked the life out of the room the moment his mind was made.
Drunken eyes were now sharpened, as they silently scanned the ink on Relik's skin with the clinical intensity of Priests.
"Where the hell did he get this?" someone shouted from a dark corner.
"The Temple," Relik responded.
The bar erupted into a chorus of laughter so long and jagged it made Relik's skin crawl.
"A Temple seal my ass!" Bara slapped the bar, her laughter subsiding into a grim smirk. She reached into the neck of her shirt and pulled the collar down, revealing seals on her right shoulder. It was a series of precise, geometric lines that looked like copper circuitry etched into her skin. "This is a Temple seal, boy. Solid and simple. What you have... that's foreign. That's old."
"I don't understand," Relik muttered.
Logun ignored him, staring at the lines on Relik's arms and chest. "Your Iké must be imbalanced as hell."
"Yeah, I bet bolt guns explode just looking at you!" a jester from the back shouted, triggered a fresh wave of mockery.
Logun studied Relik's face, his expression turning pensive. It was the first time Relik had seen the man truly speechless. Logun traced the edge of a seal without touching it. "Kid... do you even know what these are for? Did they teach you anything?"
Relik shook his head.
"Guys, the kid skipped kindergarten!" the jester yelled.
"He's Unmarked," Logun announced, his voice carrying a sudden weight that silenced the room again. "They probably didn't think he was worth the time it would take to educate him."
Bara's eyes widened. She looked at Logun, then back to Relik. "He's Unmarked... and you're heading to Potaan?"
"It was nice knowing you, kid!" someone called out. "I'll drink to your memory tomorrow!"
"He'll live," Logun brushed it off, though his voice lacked conviction, "I just don't know how long after."
He turned back to Relik's arm, "listen. These seals are for an old military technique. It's called Vesseling."
Relik frowned. "Vesseling?"
"It's how we level the playing field," Bara explained, her voice softening. She kissed her own shoulder where her seal glowed faintly. "Vesseling is when you take the soul energy of someone who is dying and you stitch it into someone else. I had comparatively low soul energy, always did. This seal carries what's left of my husband. It's not a perfect mix, but it keeps my Iké a high enough quality that I don't tire out too easily. Keeps me strong enough to run this place alone."
Relik felt a wave of nausea. He looked at the black lines spiraling up his arms and chest, a sudden feeling of a confusing warmth beneath the skin. "So... I have a dead person on me? At all times?"
"Relax," Logun said, finally finding his words as he looked at the sheer complexity of Relik's Marks. "Given how messy your Iké is... that dead person is probably the only thing keeping you from exploding."
"Comforting," Relik sighed.
"Now come on," Logun smirked, "this could be the last time you ever see these people. Have a drink with us."