Final Fantasy VI - Setzer, pre-game

[lirillith]

Title: Vector
Fandom: Final Fantasy VI
Character: Setzer
Word count: 200 words
Rating: PG
Warnings: Nothing
Summary: Druxy - Something that looks fine on the outside, but is rotten on the inside.
Notes: Another fic for the vocabulary meme - a double drabble this time.

****

Gestahl made the trains run on time, they’d say, half-mocking.  He was stern, but fair.  That, clearly, was why officers of Gestahl’s military were in intense, cutthroat competition for an invitation onto the Blackjack, which became exempt from Gestahl’s laws against gambling as soon as it left the ground. 

Gestahl made the trains run on time, and his passion for order and punctuality was so profound that he needed to share it with all the world.  The southern continent was only the beginning, of that no one had any doubt.  That wasn’t even a rumor, just common knowledge.

When the wine flowed freely, Gestahl’s men talked about human experimentation, about mad scientists and mad generals and madness of all descriptions.  A broken chain of command, arbitrary orders, Gestahl sending orders halfway across the globe that no one dared dispute even though he had no idea of the situation on the ground. 

Vector was a miserable place to be.  Always drab, it now felt positively foreboding to Setzer.  It was clean, you could say that for it.  No beggars, no drunks in the gutters, no litter, no trace of poverty or decay; but no trace of happiness or even humanity, either.