When Yuna is eight-and-a-half, she catches a snake. It alternately coils and writhes in her hands as she shifts it from one to the other, giggling and marveling at the feel of smooth scales over pure sinew. She raises it to her cheek, pinning it gently between palm and face, and smiles again as it slides easily between them.
When she drapes it across the back of her neck, it makes another escape attempt. She just manages to catch it, closing her hand around its midsection. It turns on her then, striking out and sinking needle-sharp teeth into the side of her hand.
Startled by the movement, she flings it away into the grass. Then she sees her own blood leaking from the punctures, feels the sting of the bite, and runs sobbing to Kimahri.
Thankfully, it wasn't venomous. She has nightmares for a time. Kimahri teaches her what he knows of snakes, of precautions and wariness, and she doesn't have another significant encounter.
Her childhood fears fade into adult worries as she sets her mind to become a Summoner, her attention turning towards prayers and Sendings and aeons and a pilgrimage, and she forgets to watch for snakes.
It's not until years later, when Seymour Guado takes her hand and brushes his thumb over the faint scar there that she remembers.
"Knowing makes fear small," her first guardian had told her. She still isn't sure that's true, for all she learned about snakes had made her dread them more.
Snakes are cold. They covet warmth because they have none of their own.
Maybe that's why Seymour keeps touching her. Hands on her shoulder. Fingers to her cheek. Taking her hand.
But unlike Seymour, snakes are still alive.
Some snakes have a venom that can stop the blood from scabbing over their bite, so that it flows and flows until you've lost too much.
She thinks on this fact as she strives to take any moment to herself. Seymour is always near, and has need of neither food nor rest. She requires ample of both from the stress of the fates she has consigned herself to.
She wakes once in the dead of night to the subtle sounds of him leaving her room. She cannot sleep for days after that.
Then her food is drugged and she sleeps for nearly a day.
She no longer touches her meals if she can help it.
Other sorts have such strength they can kill simply by coiling tightly around their prey. She always hated those most.
Seymour draws her into an embrace, pressing her to his death-cold chest. She stiffens and tries to pull away but he is stronger and slowly tightens his hold against her struggles.
A deeper fear than any she has known seizes her as she thinks she can hear her ribs creaking under the pressure and she begins thrashing and crying out.
He releases her, but only to clamp a hand over her mouth. "I mean you no harm," he swears. She doesn't believe him.
All snakes swallow their prey whole. Their teeth cannot take bites. They must have everything all at once or nothing
The notion haunts her when his hands easily engulf her own, when he stands too close and she is made keenly aware of how much bigger he is than her. How easily he could overpower her. The way he speaks of their upcoming wedding.
She makes her excuses and shuts herself in the bathroom — the sole place of privacy she has anymore. There, she sinks to the floor in the far corner and chokes on stifled sobs.
It's a miracle that she gets her staff for the wedding day. She folds it into the train of her dress and prays the source of her jitters is misread. She will Send him. She'll Send him to the Farplane before all of Spira. Everyone will see it, and he will have nowhere to hide.
She has the snake by the tail at last.
All would have gone to plan were it not for her guardians. She even thought at first to take advantage of the diversion they provided, but Seymour sees her too soon.
There are guns to her friends' heads, and she knows the snake has turned on her. She lowers her staff, helpless and furious for it.
He strikes, and it is a cold-lipped kiss that lingers too long.