A/N: Uh…yeah. Reviews are nice…
--start--
Seymour stares into the abyss, locked between the world and emptiness. Yuna's eyes are blue-green beacons and her hands on his shoulders are like a vise on his throat and in the absence of everything, she is.
You needn't fear for me, lady, he says, or said, or will say. This is nothing, no light, no darkness; no life, no death. This is what waits--I will be trailblazer, pioneer. I will lead the people of Spira to blissful apathy and the emptiness will be filled.
This is the abyss, Yuna said, her words a stone commandment. Like an unforgiving god she grasps him. This is what you have created, what you have yearned for. This is the depth of your desires. This place is for you alone.
Do not forget.
- -
Seymour remembers.
- -
In the rocky passage where she fights Sin she is a beacon of purity, and her footfalls are the airy steps of birth, of beginnings. When she dances she brings the promise of growth and cleansing.
Beside her he is ageless, forever untouched by years.
Dance for them, he tells her, or did he? He is unsure.
Her answer is obedience. I will dance for them, she says, so they forget.
- -
Are you cold, he says, or said, or will say. You have no substance here.
I am not cold, she says. There is nothing for me to feel in this place.
Her hands are frozen on his shoulders and it feels like frost encroaching on his body.
Do not forget.
- -
In cold Guadosalam she is like earth-mother, holding the promise of fecundity and renewal. She is not timid, as others, and in her voice he hears the whisper of new growth.
Seymour has never changed.
Do you give what you promise, he might have said. Do you forever give new life to Spira.
I bring salvation, she says, more sure than he last saw her. I bring progress. I do not take away. Do not forget.
- -
In the abyss Seymour can feel Yuna's pulse through her hands, steady as war drums against his neck.
Your breath comes faster, he says. There is no air here, no life in this vacuum.
I do not breathe here, she will say. In this place I need no nourishment.
He can feel the rapid, frightened rhythm, the chanting of priests, the shouts of soldiers dancing against him as his own rhythms strive to match it.
Do not forget.
- -
At the last she is cold and unforgiving, like a stern, faceless goddess of judgment. There are no promises in her dance, there is no whisper in her passing. In her presence there is only the finality of death, of ends, and her footfalls are the toll of solemn bells.
Seymour is nothing beside her.
You take, you take, he says, desperate, you take and do not give.
In your death there will be the gift of eternity, she says.
You give the promise of mortality, he says, and that is to take.
I give forever, she says, and it will be salvation and hell.
- -
Yuna's eyes are infinite, beacons to the real world, and around him she is dancing, dancing, dancing. Her footfalls are nothing. She is nothing. Yuna is the abyss, and in her Seymour is falling.
On his shoulders Yuna's hands are a chokehold, a challenge, a lover's embrace. They twine around his neck, they touch him, they bind him to reality in their passing, and he can feel her breath, feel her skin, and he can feel and he cannot feel and he is falling and oh he is falling.
Seymour is falling, falling into the abyss, and he can never forget.
--end--
