Hi Everyone! ~_^ I think a bit of an explanation is required for this. This is the story of a summoner's pilgrimage that happened 500 years before the game. Why? There are tons of stories during and after the game's story takes place, but very few before. I thought it would be fun, darn it. -_- This is really just an introduction, a prologue, persay.
Spira and that whole summoning concept are property of Squaresoft, not me.
Chapter One
Refusal
I stared down at my mug of tea. "I wish to become Sky's guardian."
When I heard nothing, I looked up. Mom was looking at me from her place by the counter chopping onions, and Father was doing the same. I cleared my throat. "I-"
"We heard you, Raika," Mom said. "No."
"But-" I stood up, pushing back my chair, then took a deep breath. Not thinking before I spoke was a problem of mine. "Why?"
"Honey, don't you think this is a little sudden?"
I glared. "I've been thinking about it for six months!"
"You're too young," Father said abruptly, and went back to his book. I glared at him, too.
"I'm fifteen! And Sky's only a year older, that's not much! No one tried to stop her from going on her pilgrimage!"
Mother cleared her throat. I knew what her answer was going to be. Sky had come to Kilika at five with a group of refugees from a Sin-destroyed village. She had spent her life in the small huts reserved for such people, helping out the nurses to earn her keep. There was no one to tell Sky not to go.
"Mom, Sky's my friend! I can't let her just go off!"
"Raika, you are not going. It's too dangerous, and-"
"Don't you care? How many more lives does Sin have to destroy for the need to outweigh the danger? I know it's dangerous! I want to do something more to help than sit here all day!"
"Raika."
Whirling around, I stomped out the door. I jogged a few hundred feet along the wooden boards that served as streets in my town—Kilika was built almost entirely over the ocean-- to where Sky was sitting, dangling her feet in the water. As I approached, Sky looked up, brushing her blonde bangs out of her face, and smiled.
"How did it go?"
I scowled and sat down next to her. "They wouldn't let me! They said it was too dangerous, and I'm too young-"
"They just don't want you to get hurt," said Sky. She stared out across the ocean and sighed.
"A lot more people would get hurt if I didn't go than if-"
"Rai, calm down. They love you, is all." She shook her head. "This does complicate things. I've got to go help Jan make dinner now, I'll see you later." She stood up and walked off, leaving me alone. I got the uncomfortable impression that something rather important had been said, but I couldn't quite place it. The I realized, with a twinge of guilt-- Sky had no one to love her too much to let her go.
About a half an hour passed before I heard footsteps behind me. Without bothering to look up, I could tell it was Father.
"Raika, come with me. I want to show you something." I ignored him, trying to skip small pieces of wood. He sat down beside me in silence. Fifteen minutes passed before my curiosity got the better of me. Besides, watching wood sink isn't very entertaining.
"What… did you want to show me?" He got up and walked back to the house, and I followed. Mom's probably off discussing her crazy daughter with the neighbors, I thought ruefully- there was no one home, and I knew my little sister wouldn't be back for a couple hours.
Father led me into my parents' bedroom. I followed cautiously- there was almost an unspoken rule in our house against my sister Tami and I going in there. Sitting down on the bed, I watched Father rummage in a trunk in the far corner.
"Here it is," said Father. Standing up, he held something out. I gasped.
"W-what-"
"It's a shuriken," her father answered, holding it up to the light. It had a central handle, with four sharp metal rods as long as my arm radiating out from it. It looked dangerous—and not just because it had sharp ends. It was a light silver color, and shone in the sunlight from the window.
"Where did you… get it?" Many people in the village had daggers or rods, to help fend off the smaller Sinspawn that occasionally attacked, but I had never seen a weapon like this before.
"I never told you, did I." I shook my head, even though it hadn't seemed like a question. "I was a guardian once." He cut me off before I could interrupt. "Summoner Mikel, twenty years ago."
"Mikel? But-"
"The pilgrimage… failed," said Father quietly. "Mikel was killed. Kilika was the best place I could think of to go after that. I came here and married your mother, you and your sister were born, and I guess I didn't want to tell you… that I failed."
I was still recovering from my initial shock. I loved him, but my father had never seemed the type to be very brave and go on adventures. And besides, didn't Father, just an hour ago, forbid me to become a guardian? But, no, I remembered. He had said I was too young. Doing some calculating, I figured he must have been nineteen on his pilgrimage. Done with that, I caught up to what he was saying.
"Why are you telling me now, then?"
"If you want to go, I can't hold you back," he said quietly. "Yevon knows I would have done anything to go. Sky's leaving tomorrow, you said?"
"I didn't, but yes."
"Ask her to leave tonight." I finally noticed where he was going with this, and opened my mouth. Father cut me off. "I'll try to give you as many supplies as I can." He stood up and walked out of the room. "Rai." I looked up. He took a deep breath. "Come back. For Yevon's sake, come back."
