To Love & Lost
Chapter 1: The End of Calm
(Warnings: T, crash depiction]
Mousy brown hair spilled in sheets over her shoulders, suspended and unmoving as meditative breath seeped in inhales through her nostrils, exhales through lips only slightly ajar. Utilizing breathing exercises she'd learned in her youth as an ambitious young summoner, the quiet she felt in the Chamber of the Fayth was eerie without the dulcet refrains of Valefor inundating the air with perpetual, dreaming hymns. In a moment of impasse, her mismatched eyes opened to the pulsating stone, an aura of gold that shone upon an empty, unpainted relief. Following the ragged crags in the stone, fissures made it appear far, far older than it had looked just years ago. Yuna's hand reverently touched the glass, remembering the aeon that had beget from it, the precious being she'd first gained on her first Pilgrimage, still bowed over it in worshipful prostration. It was difficult to believe it'd been three years since then, and only one prior from the horrors of Vegnagun that had been staunched only months ago.
The priestess was haunted, her expression seeming nearly vacant as the voices she'd been shutting out entered through her periphery; argumentative, alarmed voices that bespoke of what she'd seen on the Moonflow just days before with a boy who would've become a summoner and a girl who worked for the Spiran Council. Her heels clicked as she arose, sleeveless kimono wound by a simple obi that seemed reminiscent of her own summoner days fanning from her, its simplicity and muted blue palette better reflecting the sobered woman she'd become since even her adventurous self just a year before. Yuna's hair was longer, reaching past her shoulder blades sans the long queue had been worn before. She looked more mature, yes, but in this moment she felt more like her seventeen year old self than she had in years. Sin was back, but the fayth weren't—it made sense that she would.
"Yuna, I'm glad you could come," Lulu greeted from the sparse bench she'd seated herself on when Yuna arrived at Lulu's homestead minutes later, smiling quietly and speaking in her level, husky intonation—perhaps to the benefit, too, of a sleeping Vidina she cradled on her lap and the sheaf of papers she was dexterously signing with her free hand. Occasionally, she tossed one of her braids again over her shoulder when it cascaded too far. However, when Yuna lowered herself into a cushion, the scratch work of the quill paused and silence fell over the women.
"I'm going to fight Sin again. I have to," Yuna said without greeting, hands clasped anxiously together, lifting her gaze to match intently with the former Guardian's, lips pursed and pensively working as though she were trying to resist standing up to formally bow in apology, Lulu assessing that much as well. "I saw it. Exactly how it used to be. And...I know. I have to fight it, even if I go alone."
"You won't be alone, Yuna," the mage gently chided, reaching across as subtly as she could to perch a hand on the former summoner's shoulder. "I just don't know if Wakka or I will be able to come with you this time. Have you spoken about this with Rikku, Tidus—the rest of the Gullwings yet?"
Yuna uttered a distinctly hopeless sigh, her head shaking. "Rikku I think would come, maybe Paine, but… I don't know where Tidus is. We...had an argument almost a week ago, in Bevelle." The argument where she'd lied through her teeth, claimed that they'd grown apart, when in fact she was scared. Even with Yunalesca perished, the means to this end a mystery, part of the priestess was still terrified that he'd be used as a countermeasure like in the creation of Final Aeon. That the one closest to her would have to be sacrificed. Chuami had accused her of focusing too much on her relationship woes rather than the dire problem at hand, when the girl couldn't be farther from the truth. She just didn't want to have to sacrifice the one she loved, something Tidus had taught her to rebel against. But now, stymied as to where he could even be through this new insurrection, she feared the worst. "I think...we both knew he couldn't stay. I just didn't think it'd happen so soon," Yuna confided, hands clenching together.
"You don't have time to be looking for him, Yuna. You need to focus on helping Spira vanquish Sin once more." Noting Yuna's melancholy, Lulu amended, "You'll just have to look for him along the way."
The brought the priestess' gaze back up again, Yuna smiling with a blossoming sense of resolve. "You're right. With everything going on, I have to be strong. Thank you, Lulu." Even if it couldn't staunch the foreboding sense of dread fluttering in her breast that Tidas really was gone.
And she wasn't sure if she'd be able to get him back this time.
Being aboard the Celsius again felt as reassuring as returning to Besaid, somehow. When she'd called, they'd come running;her old Gullwings family back to help her save the world. The airship had felt like a secure, if stylish, aerial fortress that was more solid than immobile stone or tents canvassed in material that felt so flimsy in the wake of Sin's return. As the gears of the lift whirred and florescent lights passed brightly over her countenance, when the door lifted and the bridge was within sight, instead she was greeted by a wild mane of blonde hair.
"Yunie!" her cousin cried out in enthusiastic greeting, Yuna just having caught her in the nick of time for an engulfing hug. Even Rikku's ensemble had matured, the freshly-turned nineteen year old clad in a clay-toned leather sheath bound by several clasps from throat to the dress' hem, yellow chaps tethered around her legs and overlapped by thigh-high brown boots and partially over the dress while her old, puffy sleeves remained as a leftover from her Thief dressphere, her hair kept in a single, loosely bound thick braid instead of the tangled mane from before. Yuna couldn't help but laugh, feeling welcomed all at once, Brother whooping from the bridge whilst Buddy tactfully reminded him to keep his eyes forward so long as the Celsius wasn't on autopilot. Even the reserved Shinra waved from his seat, hands perched on its back like the kid his intelligence belied he still was.
To think, the last time they'd seen each other was scaling the heights of Iutycyr Tower almost a whole year ago, and then it had been tense. But as Spira rallied around a new cause, it would seem that inseparable bond all them knew existed in some capacity had magnetized them together once again.
"You look so different! You look like, like—" Rikku began jubilantly, voice gregarious until it quelled, smiling sheepishly and gazing away, "like Lenne." Yuna could only smile distantly, nodding. She had taken on more aspects of the ancient songstress than she'd thought, hadn't she? Almost fitting considering she and Tidus were almost perfect mirror reflections of the ancient couple. She only hoped their fate wouldn't be shared.
Even if Tidus was… No, she didn't want to think about it. Yuna didn't want her resolve broken.
"I know," Yuna acceded quietly and tersely, Rikku tepidly peeling herself away as though she'd been the human embodiment of flypaper. "Is Paine on board?"
"Nuh-uh. She's been with the Spiran Council a whole lot lately, helping Baralai and Nooj and stuff. Kinda like how you have with the Yevoners." The Al Bhed girl visibly crinkled her features at that, as if she'd inhaled a whiff of a Marlboro's noxious plumes. Yuna smiled tensely, expecting that Rikku wouldn't have taken too well with the news. For all the progress they'd made, from Yevon to its progeny, it would likely take the blonde a few Calms' worth of acclimating to this reality. Especially where her cousin was involved. You'd think her first and only Pilgrimage would've shaken away the last of it, but...she'd been wrong. Now more than ever the familiar was what Spira needed, for now.
"Oh, well, it least we—" Yuna didn't have time to finish the sentence as the Celsius suddenly plunged forth, Brother shouting garbled Al Bhed whilst both girls yelped in surprise, clutching together as they bounced like rubber before smacking harshly against the thick, metallic threshold encompassing the corridor. Yuna cried out as they stopped, body thrashing with the metal before a moment of vertigo harshly realigned her senses when Brother shouted out, the dizzy emerald swirls of his eyes fixated ahead of them, Yuna scampering to her feet to see while Rikku dizzily used her cousin as a crutch while she calibrated. Before them, the familiar, enormous snout of Sin seemed poised within the distance with its rostrum just a kilometer from the Celsius. The myriad eyes embed into its tough, wrinkle-whorled hide swerving without focus before honing in unison upon the loudly decaled, crimson airship. Yuna froze with anticipation, remembering the last time they'd been so close to Sin. Her mind raced, wondering who it was incarnated as this time, fingers ghosting over her garment grid to engage the Floral Fallal as if they were on the deck, everything so painfully familiar.
"Rikku! Yuna! Rumt uh du cusadrehk!" Brother called over the deafening, cauterizing screech of metal as an artificial gravitational pull insistently favored against the strain of the Celsius' engines, Brother fighting tooth and nail to pilot it away before an extreme was favored.
"We're going to have to make a nosedive! It's the only way we'll be able to utilize the Celsius' weight as counterweight against Sin's hold on us!" Buddy informed them above the cacophony, the blast of cobalt jettisons from the oscillating fore-mechanisms working at overdrive to achieve the crazy plan Buddy had concocted. Even Yuna could see that the only thing that could possibly save them was the trademark ingenuity and inventiveness of the Al Bhed, to put in euphemistically. Yuna and Rikku reflexively embraced one another, their hands clenching at the exposed piping and meshes of wires roped strung within the bridge corridor.
At the very last minute, Shinra sprinted towards the two and both girls engulfed him in their embrace, protectively so. While Rikku buried her head with Shinra's for cover, only Yuna craned far back enough with a strained expression, brows furrowed deep as a lingering view of the brown, craggy texture of Sin's hide lurched sidelong with each violent sway of the airship, they weightless in these moments before the final drop would come.
Yuna's stomach floated weightlessly into her throat as they plunged into a free-fall, gravity light as the inertia dragged them incrementally backwards from its sheer momentum and velocity. Rikku whimpered as she clung tightly to Yuna, their legs crumpled beneath them as leather failed for purchase, skidding were it not for the vice both girls maintained until their knuckles blanched. The scream of wind rose in cacophony as the speed accelerated and the disembodied howl of a tortured Farplane emanated from Sin, and even in that split second she knew something was different, was wrong. But there would be no time to think as she bit her tongue until it bled, they all unbelievably silent as the lamenting wail of the dead screamed in horrified unison for them.
It could have been to easy to make believe it was the prelude of another sleepy dawn, that she'd find a face full of sunlight asleep and snoring softly with tufts of flaxen locks pressed against her face as they'd awake a tangle of warm limbs and innocent giggles at what state they'd found themselves in this time. Nose rubbing against nose before she'd awake, sometimes questioning who really embodied the sun and moon. Whatever the answer was, neither would argue for or against the fact most mornings saw them some shade or another of happiness.
This time, she awoke to plumes of smoke and morning fog skirting across her field of vision a bleary eye could manage, a single eyelid cracking open as her body halted itself against any sudden movements. Yuna groaned and with it, stones slammed upon her joints and breath struggled into her lungs, dust and smoke taking precedence as each loud and dusty cough made her body spasm in pain, a paroxysm of it that awakened her fully to consciousness in the worst way possible. The priestess gathered her legs beneath her, gasping the incantation for Cura that flooded pristine white light in an undulating wave over her. It was enough to cure the worst of her, sometimes a superficial panacea for wounds that ran deeper. But it was enough as she dusted away pebbles that had embed in her skin, rivulets of blood cauterized whilst her sleeveless kimono was torn in places. Sharing material with the halved skirt she'd worn with the Gunner dressphere, it wasn't hard to see why.
As she wobbled to stand, it was what had become to the Celsius that awed her—and not for the better. The mechanized fore that resembled a duel-axis motorcycle on enormous dials had collapsed, one toppled over in a heap over underbrush while the other towered uneasily from the canopy of what could only be a forest. The fuselage was collapsed in a deep depression, as if a hammer had smashed roughly on the hood. From the earthbound view did Yuna seem impossibly small, her chest cold with fear as she wondered what had become of Rikku, Shinra, and the others. The Celsius was utterly trashed in the wake of its own destruction, the priestess' mind frantic as she worked where they could've possibly gone. Or, worse still, what had happened. It was with a distant and numb shock that Sin swam through the beginning of the stars as night fell, through a weightless sea as it moved more effortlessly than any airship before. Tail undulating and fins propelling its direction, she felt tears bead angrily within her eyes.
"It's—the same exact same as before. Nothing has changed, e-except—" Yuna stammered to herself, collapsing to her knees. She scrubbed her eyes from the tears that doomed them, smearing dust and soot across her light skin. Except that she was alone. Clenching her teeth, she resolutely stood, cupping her hands around her mouth and yelling after Rikku, Shinra, Brother, Barkeep—all of them as her voice seemed to blend with the thick plumes of smoke that obfuscated they very sky, it dyed a milky, cloudy gray that sickly framed the silhouette of the destroyed airship.
Her heels crunched on charred underbrush and the enormous clouts of loam and stone that had been upset from their haphazard fall from the sky, recognition alighting on Yuna's features blearily making out just where they were. She reckoned it was early morning, at least, and by the spurs of a mountain pocketed by gorges and high plateaus. The Calm Lands that had been shaken from their names temporarily. Her hair billowed from behind as the woods of Macalania rose twisted and crystalline into the sky, but...something seemed different with them. Different than they'd been following the coming of her Eternal Calm, of how they'd been irreparably fading as a result of the fayth fading. But, with all that had occurred, was that the case any longer?
"Y-Yunie…!" A guilty jolt made the priestess realize she'd been lost in a daze when the most prominent of her priorities had been neglected. The woman ran as fast as she could towards the voice, realizing it was Rikku just a meter or two away from the fuselage. With her synthesist abilities, it was easy to deduce that she'd composed a concoction that had restored her health even if both women were still dusty and caulked with mud from the botched landing. Rikku herself trotted towards her cousin, both girls embracing from sheer relief for a moment before Rikku urgently plead, "Yunie, we have to find them! We've gotta find a way on board the Celsius!" Yuna glanced up at the ship, face sympathetically drawn. Her feelings were mutual. After the destruction of Home, the loss of her cousin and so many people she had never gotten the opportunity to meet, the thought of losing Brother or Buddy and Shinra, who had become an impromptu family, made her heart lurch. But, her breast burned with fortitude as she placed both her hands on the shorter girl's shoulders.
"Come on, Rikku. We'll find them, promise." Rikku nodded, gnawing her lower lip in worry. Even if Yuna was more reserved with her emotions, she felt exactly the same as Rikku did. Managing to climb and leap their way atop the fuselage, the view was hardly stellar. It really did look like something out their machina excavations and it gave Yuna a sinking feeling—moreso than how wretched both girls already felt with Sin's resurrection. Thy picked their way through the collapsed hatch, using both leverage and Rikku's machina know-how in order to manipulate it enough for both to squeeze through. Though the inside was pitch dark, save for some exposed wires sparking caustically and lights that flashed eerily. A Fire spell ignited and maintained in Rikku's palm allayed the worst of it.
"Shinra!" she suddenly cried, the flame suddenly extinguished as Rikku hurriedly dashed towards the prone boy with Yuna in tow, a Phoenix Down and Hi-Potion shed in order to progressively revive him. Both women were on their knees, Yuna turning him gently on his back to cradle him in her arms, a maternal instinct admittedly flaring as both anxiously awaited for him to awake. If there was something they could be grateful for, however, years of adventuring had stocked them generously with abilities and replete items that could keep them going for quite some time.
"Hngh...Yuna?" the boy managed, hand foggily coming to touch his helmet. "...I think the CommSphere broke." Yuna smiled at this, glad that it seemed he'd made it through fairly unscathed. Proved by his primary thought since awakening regarded his technology, even as Rikku hovered over them both.
"Shinra, did you see Brother and Buddy at all?" Rikku asked after him, eyes wide and worried and lip being chewed as though she might bite it off through her worries. The boy shook away the after-healing clouds in his mind, lifting himself up.
"I'm just wondering how we ended up like this. By the looks of it, you and Yuna landed outside the Celsius, and I'm up here. That shouldn't have been possible. Unless there's something behind it? Like, some kind of interference."
"Wait, so does this mean Buddy and Brother could be anywhere? What about Barkeep?" Rikku pressed, hands clenched into fists at her collar, knuckles blanching from her worry.
Yuna gazed thoughtfully down, realizing that Shinra could really be on to something. "Sin transported Jecht, Sir Auron, and even Tidus from Dream Zanarkand. Maybe the same happened to us even if it wasn't for as far," she deduced thoughtfully, even the Al Bhed boy folding his arms contemplatively.
"That could have happened. We did get extremely close to Sin, after all," Shinra agreed. Yuna nodded, distantly wondering if that hadn't been what happened to Tidus. Even if it wasn't the time to be wondering about it, her heart still clenched with worry over him, over all this.
"Alrighty, we have an idea! Why don't we split up? Yunie, how about you go look outside? Shinra and I oughtta look inside the airship, just in case! Y, R...um, S! Let's boogie!" Rikku crowed, posturing her hand before her and expectantly waiting for Shinra and Yuna to stack theirs over hers, Yuna doing so without needing prompting and with a huge smile, no less. She remembered how her old Pilgrimage had been filled with smiles and laughter despite the pain, how her Gullwings days had been full of fun despite the threat of Vegnagun. Why should this be any different?
Shinra regarded them in bemusement before joining in, more reserved like how Paine had always been. "1, 2, 3—go!" Rikku counted, pumping their hands up and down before releasing and shooting them up like fireworks, hopping between her feet as Shinra still seemed dubious.
"Shinra, what's wrong?" Yuna took notice, worry gently circulating across her face, leaning down some to gaze eye-level with the boy. Rikku grew quiet and twiddled her thumbs, wanting to bolt off and begin their search however they could.
Glancing up at her, he confided, "I don't like what's happening, Yuna. I have a bad feeling about this."
"What can be worse than divebombing from an airship and crash-landing? You worried about Sin? Trust us, Yunie and I are Sin experts," Rikku interjected, braided hair animatedly bouncing with the firm nod she gave. Her smile was there, but they'd be lying if both women didn't share that fear. For it truly was different this time. They seemed as anxious as they'd been after rejecting Yunalesca and the act necessary to create the Final Aeon. Even if the solution had come later, this time was different. There were no aeons, and it seemed totally unclear as to how Sin had been beckoned in the first place. Yu Yevon had needed aeons to possess and souls to amass, but there had been no Final Aeon for him to manipulate. Unless...no, she didn't even want to think it.
Shinra took notice of Yuna's recession into her thoughts, pointedly glancing at Rikku. "The last time you took down Sin, Yuna had aeons for Yu Yevon to possess until you wore away at the final defense he had. How are you going to defeat it this time without them?"
"Who did he possess it order to make Sin so...real?" Yuna wondered aloud in lieu of that thought, matching gazes with the boy.
However, Rikku shook and shattered their thoughts, stamping her feet and clapping her hands loudly between their faces. "Um, hello, earth to Yuna and Shinra?! We have to find Brother, Buddy, and Barkeep! Can't this wait?!" The other woman huffed, taking Shinra by his arm and leading him insistently away. "Geez, you'd think you both were swamped with Sin toxin by how off you're being!"
Rikku was right, in a way. It wasn't like her to be so despondent when such an emergency was still paramount. "I'm sorry, Rikku!" she called after the girl, both tinkering with the elevator shaft in order to at least open the hatch, knowing they might be in for a climb ahead of them, not receiving a reply from the blonde.
Ever since that last mission they'd embarked on together half a year ago, things just hadn't been the same between them. Even if Rikku wasn't the sort of person to hold on to a grudge, what had been said still stung and dredging up those revelations had exposed them; the wounds inflicted still smarted and scarred. Yuna joining the Yevoners hadn't made it any easier, that likely a sorer spot than even that argument. After what they'd gone through for Spira, Rikku wanted nothing to do with Yevon or its resurgence and Yuna couldn't blame her. That didn't make her want them to be any more distant, however.
It was times like these Yuna wanted to take Tidus' old advice and just yell. Loud and long and into some great expanse of sky. She didn't let these thoughts deter her search, however. Leaping from the sunken in fuselage muzzle, the decals trailed behind her as she began her search. Overturning hunks of steel and stone and calling out their names, those calls were fueled by her consternation and worry. In a way, she was yelling like Tidus had at Kilika Temple, only it coming out as her friends' names. Minor spells of Fire burned away detritus while Blizzard and Watera quenched minor flames still fumigating in the wreckage. The damage that had been dealt was enormous, noticing they'd been precariously perched on a cliff side that leaned into the beginnings of Macalania Woods, a wellspring of nostalgia flowing just from sighting its chilly crystal borders.
"Lady Yuna! Is that you?" Yuna finished overturning a slab of metal plating, it collapsing noisily upon rubble before she turned, almost melting with relief when she saw who it was.
Just dismounting from his armored chocobo, Clasko had barely changed over the three years she'd come to know him. Plucky, hard-working and dedicated, the former Chocobo Knight had graduated on to becoming a chocobo breeder and the venture had paid off. Chocobos had been in resurgence, now more for the sake of pleasure than practicality as most Spirans utilized machina transportation anymore. But in the time of Sin's return, much of her knew that they'd find use once again.
"Oh, hello Clasko," she greeted politely, inclining her head whilst managing a weak smile, imagining she still looked somewhat worse for wear. The wreckage of the Celsius would only confirm that.
"Lady Yuna, I'm glad you're alright! I heard the crash and came as fast as I could. Some people from Rin's Travel Agency doubled over, and they're with me, too."
Yuna's face brightened with relief, clasping a hand she held at her breast, bowing low and deep. "Thank you, Clasko! Thank you. I'm sorry we had to reunite like this, but with everything going on..." Shaking her head, she backpedaled. "Have you seen Brother or Buddy, or maybe a hypello? His name is Barkeep, and..." Her face fell, wringing her hands together.
"Sin is back, Clasko. The reason we crashed is because of it. We tried to evade its pull, but—this happened. I'm sorry," she said quietly after a long moment, head bowed from her abject shame. Even if the crash hadn't been her fault directly, somehow it felt like it was.
Clasko neared her, scratching the nape of his neck as he bit his lip, unsure of what to say. Seeing her forlorn expression, the man forcefully smiled and cheerily said, "No need to worry, Lady Yuna! Things are different now, aren't they? Spira isn't like how it used to be. With everyone as united as they are, we'll take down in Sin in no time at all! Just watch, you'll see!"
Yuna worked up a small smile, nodding. "You're right. I'm sorry for doubting, Clasko."
The brunet softened his expression, adding, "In fact, I was just on my way to Bevelle to transport these chocobos to the reforming Crusaders. Apparently, there's a lot of old branches of the Youth League reverting into new chapters. I'm gonna join again, this time as a chocobo supplier. Heck, don't be too surprised if you see the Chocobo Knights racing down Mi'ihen Highroad like before." Even his chocobo mount warked, bouncing between its feet as the bipedal avian voiced its agreement.
This voice alone of confidence was enough to reapply herself to the search, smiling gratefully at the breeder. "Thank you, Clasko. Could you maybe give me a lift to Macalania Woods' border? I'd be grateful, and I want to try searching for them there."
"Anything for you, Lady Yuna," the man acceded with a hearty nod, offering his hand as he helped her mount, joining her from behind and spurring the chocobo at a steady canter before it fluttered from the precarious cliff and down the path that would lead to Macalania.
If there was any place to begin her search, it was here. At the place where so many things seemed to tie together.
Last thoughts: With this story, it's following the plot set by the audio drama FFX: Will, only with the aim of bridging it in a way that isn't as unpleasant as the reception it received. Even though this is a Seymour/Yuna-centric story, I wanted to achieve it in a way that stays truer to the characters. Especially with how this story will not acknowledge Eien no Daisho simply because I have no way of reading the story itself, which I heard was an OOC mess. To begin, it plays on the reality that Tidus' return wasn't meant to be permanent in the first place, negating him dying and being beckoned again as an Unsent, something that didn't sit to well with me. Characters like Chuami and Kurgum will be retained, but their prominence will probably still be considerably less than in the audio drama.
Anyways, I hope you all enjoy the story I've set out to write!
-Peace, G