PROLOGUE
To the west of the blue seas of Besaid lay the tiny archipelago of Hadura; its main island is home to no temple, so very few ever stop on this small chain of islands which is mostly composed of uninhabited islets. Life here is pretty much the same as anywhere else in Spira. All live under constant vigilance in fear of an attack from Sin and its spawn. No longer do the children play their carefree games in the beautiful beaches of Hadura nor under the glorious emerald canopy of this island's rich forests for mighty fiends lurk not too far away.
Ever since the Calm of High Summoner Braska ended, the people of this archipelago have prayed dutifully for a powerful summoner to put a stop to Sin's reign terror, even if only for a while. Their prayers were answered the day that Lady Yuna of Besaid, daughter of High Summoner Braska began her pilgrimage to Zanarkand. But a week after this joyful event Hadura's own summoner, Landien – son of Darion and his guardians, Ilised – son of Filus, and Lydia – his younger sister began their own pilgrimage. But Hadura did not rejoice on this normally happy occasion for its people did not have much faith in them.
You see - Landien and Lydia, natives of the main island, are the children of a marriage between a man of Yevon and an Al Bhed heretic. Ever since they were children, they have been ostracized and teased by their fellows because of their heritage. Not many would associate themselves with this family except for a brave few who believed that everyone and anyone who believed in the teachings of Yevon, even an Al Bhed, should be welcomed into their fold, but even these few, treaded carefully. On one of the smaller islands, an Al Bhed child named Ilised, who was taken in by one of the childless couples of the island when he was found alone next to the bodies of his dead parents, lived much the same way. Ilised was cast-out, hated and feared by his peers. But when these three met one day on a trading excursion between the islands, they became inseparable, forcing Ilised's adoptive parents to leave him up to the willingly given care of Darion and his Al Bhed wife, Larra on the main island.
Unfortunately, even after having found a strong friendship, their childhood was anything but easy. The other children constantly bullied this trio; their peers sometimes pelted them with rocks when Darion and Larra were not watching, the other children's parents would always turn their heads at this and ignore their offspring's cruel and violent behavior. The bruises that the trio would sustain would either go unexplained or covered-up for they could not find the courage to tell their parents in fear of worse beatings. But as they grew older the violence gradually stopped, silent indifference and icy hatred replaced it. But this was not the worst of it. Whenever Sin would attack Hadura, Besaid or even Killika, the village would blame their entire family and give them the either the cruel cold-shoulder or harass them with vicious threats or physical harm. Many times did Darion and Larra consider moving to the far away retreat of all the Al Bhed, Home, which was hidden in the Desert Island of Bikanel. But of course these plans were never executed because neither Darion nor Larra had the mettle to go back to a place that Larra had abandoned when she married a non-Al Bhed.
But life was not always so hard. There were times when the people's hatred of the Al Bhed would mellow and they would then see how truly similar they were with the Al Bhed in their hatred for Sin, but these were seldom and short-lived. Fortunately, the children would always somehow find a way to enjoy themselves even for a little while and smile despite the pain that was inside of them. Also because of these great adversities in their lives, Landien was able to find the conviction inside himself to fight and ultimately defeat Sin in the future as a summoner. While Lydia and Ilised were able to focus their pent-up frustrations into useful training in the arts of black magic and sword fighting, respectively. And as they trained themselves they knew that one-day they would go out into the world and journey to gain the power to defeat Sin, the source of Spira's pain and sorrow. But even in this most noble of endeavors, they were criticized and labeled as hopeful dreamers without any possibility of success. Despite these nasty and unkind remarks, they were not deterred from their goal, they only became more determined to accomplish what they set out to do in order to prove to all of Spira, that the Al Bhed were not enemies but their comrades in their fight against Sin.