I started playing Final Fantasy X again and I just had to write something for it! Ah...so here we have a few drabbles, mostly to alleviate the writers block I've been suffering from recently. It's helped somewhat, though I do find it a bit of a downer that I can only write...angst. Ah well. Tidus is a bit emoish anyway on occasion. I just picked those times to write about. Yay for me!
Oh yeah...this was written using 4 prompts. in the order they're used, they are 'Empty room full of sound', 'lowered lashes', 'ruins at dusk' and 'all that is left'. I hope you enjoy them, and don't forget to review, please!
"Yunie could...but then she... Yunie will die, you know? You know, don't you?"
Tidus is dimly aware speaking. Of crying. Of five faces stare at him, two impassive, one guilty and two concerned. An Al Bhed voice crows over the intercom, echoing, echoing. But none of it matters when all he can think about is Yuna; all the things he said, the smiles that never quite reached her eyes and he never noticed.
Tidus had been the only one laughing and now he was the only one crying. Suddenly it doesn't matter that the building is going to collapse. It doesn't matter that everyone is watching his weakness. The room might as well be empty. They're not there. They're in Luca, laughing and laughing, with quite a few cares in the world, though he didn't realise it at the time.
Tidus can feel his legs shaking. They won't hold still. He can feel his stomach clenching and his throat constricting and all Tidus can think is 'I want to go home'. But there is no home and Tidus knows that.
He knows he has to keep going. He needs to find Yuna and make sure that she goes back to the home she has and, most importantly, that everything he'd said to her wasn't a lie.
000
A green butterfly wafts past his nose, jolting Tidus out of his reverie. It isn't like him at all to be brooding. Tidus hits his palm on his forehead and leaves it there as he stares at the ground.
"Don't strain yourself," a voice above him says sardonically. Tidus snaps up and gives a wan grin.
"Hey Lulu." He's learnt to ignore the odd sarcasm that is thrown his way by the rather stoic woman. She gives a small returning smile and sits down beside him. The buckles and beads on her dress rattle as the long dress pools about her feet and Tidus's shoes.
They sit in what seems on the outside to be an awkward silence. Certainly, it would have been only a week or so before. But a lot has happened and neither participant in this silent conversation can say they feel the same wary antagonism for eachother that they did before.
"How's Yuna?"
"She seems preoccupied but it is to be expected.All we can do now is let her rest properly before we reach the Calm Lands tomorrow," Lulu looks up from the moogle doll on her lap that she has been toying with. Tidus looks determindly down at the dirt under his shoes.
"Both Wakka and I told you not to get involved with her," Lulu says. Her tone is slightly sharp, yet there is a hint of reproach. Remorse?
"Yeah, yeah I know. It's a bit late for that now, Lulu," Tidus replies. He closes his eyes and smiles, as though a small weight has been lifted. "Is that what you meant before, in Guadosalam? About not wanting Yuna to marry the one she loves?" Lulu doesn't respond but that is answer enough. He still can't look up and the silence continues. The sound of raised voices drifts through the blue-tinged trees; Rikku and Wakka at eachother's throats again, and the sound of a gruff voice silencing them as Auron loses his patience with their noise.
"I just don't want to see you end up like me," Lulu says at length. Tidus bites the inside of his lip.
"Oh…Chappu."
Lulu nods. "He wasn't a summoner, but he fought Sin and died. It is as inevitable as Sin itself."
"It shouldn't have to be," Tidus cries, looking feircly towards Lulu at last. "Lives shouldn't be wasted on fighting something that's just gonna keep coming back."
"You make it more obvious everyday that you come from a world without Sin," Lulu says and sighs lightly. The fists at Tidus's sides won't stop shaking, and are made only worse by Lulu's words.
"There has to be a way, and I'm gonna find it," Tidus snaps. He throws himself up and stalks away and out of sight between the trees, infuriated by Lulu's calm demeanor. Lulu looks down at her doll and smiles sadly. She knows that if there is a way, Tidus will certainly be the one to find it.
000
As long as the fayth keep dreaming, you'll continue to exist.
Don't cry.
There are many things Tidus doesn't know and just as many that he doesn't understand. But, looking at the rubble and the bent metal girders and broken machina, there is one thing above everything else that Tidus can understand.
He remembers the explosions, the crashes and the roaring. And the screams. Especially his own. Always his screams or his crying. It was all so long ago now, but he remembers the noise. The ruins of Zanarkand just reinforce the fact. Zanarkand is dead. It's been dead for 1000 years. Right now, the sun is dying in brilliant orange, only to be revived in many hours time.
He remembers the Al Bhed and Home. It, too, will no doubt be revived when all this is over. Rikku had coped quite well and Tidus hopes that he can cope as well as her.
There's no going home. If the spheres from Jecht haven't cemented the knowledge that there's no going home, then seeing the ruins of what had once been a metropolis full of life and memories has killed that hope at last.
Now there are only memories left. Tidus is one of them.
000
"Dad?" Tidus can't use more that a quiet voice. Even now he feels slightly cowed by the prescence of the man whose shadow he's always walked in. Even now.
"Yeah?"
"I hate you" They're empty words. They haven't always been, but after so long, even Tidus finds it hard to hate a memory. All he has is the memory of hatred of a memory itself, though Tidus wouldn't go so far as to say that hate has become any kind of love.
And when Jecht says "I'm sorry," Tidus can't help but think like father, like son and can't hold back the frustration from his voice. He charges forward it is Bortherhood, not Fatherhood, that he grips in his hand.
And yet, when he rushes forward and grips Jecht's crumpled body on the floor, he tells the legend just what he thinks of him. Tidus struggles to see through his rapidly blurring vision at the monster and the man that constantly left him behind. He struggles to see the truth he knows is there inside himself, and though he can say it aloiud, Tidus isn't sure just what is empty and what isn't in his actions anymore.
"I'm glad…"