Final Fantasy Crystal Chronicles Fanfiction - Kali's Caravan

Crystal Chronicles can be played either as a single player or a multiplayer game.  Your hometown is designed for a number of players; it is only populated when you create characters.  For this reason, even single players, like me, will create an entire caravan to take adventuring, purely so that their families will appear in the village as item sellers, alchemists, blacksmiths, and so on.

While playing the game, I began to wonder; if there are seven other characters with me, why is only one visiting towns and working through dungeons?  What are the rest of them doing in there?  I know why this is from a gameplay perspective, but from a story perspective...?

Kali's Caravan

Today is the day the caravan sets out on its yearly journey to gather myrrh and keep the village safe for another year.

The caravan is all packed and ready to go. The others are aboard already, and seem likely to stay there for some time. I return, to pick up supplies.

Money is no longer something I have to worry about.

"Hey, Theia, you're Robbie's friend aren't you?" Says the Silkie merchant, referring to his son. "Why don't you check out what I've got in stock?"

I do, but there is little I want to purchase. Other families around the village greet me, asking for messages from their children, or their brothers or sisters.

"Does Lupe ever say he misses us?"

"Hey, Theia, how's Lilith getting on?"

I remain non-commital.

***

I collect the myrrh alone; the others never leave the caravan. I don't talk to them at all, let alone to ask why, but they talk to me. They ask why.

I've always been one for doing things by myself.

***

The crystal chalice is two-thirds full now. Just one more drop to collect.

The others are silent now, except for that one annoying Selkie, who insists on talking, constantly. I continue to ignore him. He grows quieter day by day, anyway.

***

From a caravan of eight people, there is only one who collects each drop of myrrh. There is only one who enters each town. And there is only one who returns home at the end of one year, to be sent off by Roland, the village elder, at the start of the next.

It is a wonder that no one has noticed until now.  The other caravans stay as far away as possible from ours, and not one interferes.

Good.

***

I return with the myrrh. The other villagers gaze upon me. They look behind me. They wait an extraordinarily long time before realising that no one is going to follow me.

***

I think it is Roland who convinces them not to lynch me, once they have gathered the courage to look inside the caravan. He realises, faster than the others, that I am the caravan – I am the only one who can collect the drops of myrrh each year, and keep the village safe from miasma.

I smile at them, and they draw together, away from me, as one. My own family is not here. I have no seen them in so long. Not since-

Not since that time.

They'll probably find that one of these days, too.