Disclaimer: Final Fantasy X, Spira, and all related characters and locations are owned by Squaresoft, with the exception of a few original characters who will be noted as such. This is a work of fanfiction, meaning that it is both created by a fan for no purpose other than entertainment, and it is fiction, meaning that all characters and events are purely fictonal and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
So many great stories have been written about Yuna, Tidus, Auron, and all the rest of the main characters in Final Fantasy X. Even minor characters like Isaaru have been lauded in more fanfics than I can name. One character, however, appears repeatedly in the game and has been virtually ignored by FFX writers, despite her desperate cries for attention (get a load of that outfit). This is a brief one-shot POV exploring the feelings of the summoner Dona in the game.
Spotlight
by flame mage
**********
They say that our childhood experiences determine our future. Someone who was burned as a small child is far more likely to be afraid of fire as an adult than others. A child who nearly drowns at the beach may have a fear of swimming later in life.
By the same token, a woman who was ignored and neglected as a child will always strive to be in the spotlight.
*****
My name is Dona.
Of course, calling a lady summoner by her first name would be unimaginably rude. To you, my name is Lady Dona--at least today. Before long, my impassively beautiful statue will stand in every temple across the land, and the plaque will read "High Summoner Dona."
I can imagine those heavy stone replicas of myself, staring down with cold eyes at the firelit chambers of the temples, guarding the entrances to the Cloisters of Trials. Long after I am gone, my image will live on to watch my successor take his or her first steps into the clutches of fate. It will witness the loss of innocence as that child performs the first summoning.
Ah, the summoning. A tradition passed down through the ages in Spira. The tradition of atoning for the sins of the ages, indemnity paid for in blood. Summoners, like butterflies, live for only a short time before succumbing to their fates. They are always young--they have to be, to survive the dangers of the pilgrimage. But while their hair may not have faded to gray and their faces are still unlined by the pressures of a long life, summoners are old in a way that most people will never know. The moment you set foot in the Chamber of the Fayth for the first time, your innocence is ripped from you. There is no turning back. You have condemned yourself in exchange for the salvation of Spira.
In that short life, however, there is much to accomplish. Summoners are required to make a pilgrimage to every temple in Spira. Inside each temple, they pray to the Fayth--spirits that grant them strange mystical beasts called aeons. Only the summoners can call these beasts forth from the sky and harness their power for battle.
But even the awesome power of these aeons is only a training exercise for the real purpose of a summoner. The pilgrimage ends in Zanarkand, the ruined city ravaged a millennium ago. There, the summoner prays to the last fayth and receives the Final Aeon. With this Aeon, he or she calls Sin into one final battle. But there are no victory celebrations for these heroes. The breath taken before calling forth that Final Aeon is the summoner's last, because that act kills the summoner.
Everyone knows it. No one talks about it. Everywhere I go, I hear the whispers and see the stares. I used to whirl on all the people who were watching me and demand to know what they were talking about. It took me a long time to figure out that I was never going to get an answer and to learn to pass by with my head held high like a lady, ignoring it all.
In fact, I had to learn to do everything like a lady, which, if you'll excuse my use of the vernacular, was no picnic. I told everyone who asked--and a lot of people who didn't--that I was from a wealthy family in Bevelle. The upper-crust, high-society, tea-sipping, ballgown-wearing, practically-royalty kind of family. I was the proper young daughter who would have become a debutante and married someone from another one of the Bevellian "best families" if destiny hadn't called me to be a summoner. Oh, how my parents and younger siblings wept to see me leave, but they knew that I was only sacrificing myself to protect them from the evil ravaging of Sin! What a noble, pure young maiden I was!
Hah. And if you believe that, I have some real estate in Zanarkand I'd like to sell you, you sucker.
Forgive me; it seems I'm forgetting myself. I am the Lady Summoner Dona. I have told that story so many times that there are moments when even I can almost believe it's the truth.
As much as it shames me to admit it, my noble parentage is...my, I can feel myself slipping again; I must apologize...but it's absolute crap. I'm not from Bevelle. My family wasn't rich. Yevon, I don't even know who my family was. My earliest memories are of an orphanage in a little village on the Djose Highroad that was later destroyed by Sin.
That, incidentally, was where I met Barthello, my adoring if slightly dimwitted guardian. I must have been around thirteen at the time. I had made the mistake of insulting the intelligence of a group of ruffians, boys a little older than I, and they turned on me. The consequences might've been dire if Barthello, who was completely infatuated with me, hadn't stepped in to protect him. His worshipful attitude and awe at merely being allowed to be in my presence combined with his thickheaded willingness to undertake any quest for my sake and his excellent fighting skills made him a natural guardian. Of course, when I suggested it, he was absolutely thrilled at the prospect.
Ah, Barthello. My darling numbscull. I'm a little loath to admit this as well, but we really do make a good team. I provide the brains of the operation, he the brawn. What will you do when I'm gone, Barthello? Will you find another scantily-clad princess-wannabe and take her as the object of your affections?
He was the only one who cared when I announced, at age 15, that I was going to become a summoner. Perhaps I did it *because* no one else cared. I was a plain child, with dark, ruddy skin and dirty black hair that hung limply around my face. I had no parents. Looking back on it, my only true friend was Barthello. No one was interested in my pronouncement. I had sentenced myself to death to make them notice me, and it didn't work.
But once I had started, there was no turning back. They did not notice my courage, but they would have noticed my cowardice.
That, you see, is the beautiful irony of the life of a summoner. Summoners who defeat Sin are revered for obvious reasons, given the title of High Summoner and a statue in every temple from Besaid to Bevelle. Summoners who die along the way are also venerated and honored. Offerings are made to the temples in their names, all of Yevon prays for them, and a whole new wave of believers are inspired to become summoners. But let that summoner turn back, or fail to receive an aeon, or decide that she values her life...and she is forever shunned as a coward by the world. Spira loves summoners--but only when they are dead. Living summoners are worthless.
But a pilgrimage is a long process. Some can take a year or more. For that year, I would be the most famous and respected woman in all of Spira. Every man would desire me, every woman desire to be me. My hair and clothing style would be imitated all over the land, even in places of high fashion like Luca and Bevelle. I'd get the best table at every restaurant and the best room in every hotel. For someone who had spent a lifetime in the shadows, passing unnoticed through the world, that year of glory would be worth dying for.
But it was not to be.
Why, you ask? I was a summoner. I was Spira's salvation. I was beautiful now, and I was careful always to wear outfits that showed off my body to best advantage. I had learned to speak and act in a cultured way. I was intelligent, gorgeous, and noble. By all rights, I should have become Spira's darling. But someone else, a little girl who started her pilgrimage mere weeks before mine, beat me to it.
Her name was Yuna.
She was a mere child at seventeen, fresh-eyed and open-hearted. She was not as jaded as I, not by a long shot. Her constant smile and laughter rang in the ears and the eyes and the hearts of everyone in Spira. With her mouse-brown hair, she wasn't even all that pretty. She was not particularly driven except by her own sheer will, and she traveled with a noisy horde of guardians that I wouldn't have been able to stand.
The difference between her and all the other fresh-faced little tramps that die along the road to Zanarkand was that one of her guardians was Sir Auron. She, unlike me, really was from Bevelle. She was the daughter of High Summoner Braska, the champion of the last Calm.
She didn't have to do anything. She would have been the favorite by the mere power of her bloodline! Whereas I, I who had worked so hard to become everything Spira needed, was cast by the wayside. Ignored. Rejected. Thrown on the trash heap.
I have suffered for my destiny. I have been attacked, mauled by fiends, kidnapped and held prisoner by a band of heathen savages, and dragged all over Spira on a sacreligious flying ship. I have performed the sending more times than I care to remember. I have seen the way the people of Spira suffer, and I have vowed to end that suffering.
But I have also been upstaged, again and again and again, and I will tolerate it no longer. I have fought my whole life to be seen, and seen I will be. I will defeat Sin and send it into oblivion once and for all. Braska's daughter will not have the glory that is to be mine.
I have made my choice. I have accepted my path. I am going to summon the Final Aeon and die.
But I am going to do it in the spotlight.
So many great stories have been written about Yuna, Tidus, Auron, and all the rest of the main characters in Final Fantasy X. Even minor characters like Isaaru have been lauded in more fanfics than I can name. One character, however, appears repeatedly in the game and has been virtually ignored by FFX writers, despite her desperate cries for attention (get a load of that outfit). This is a brief one-shot POV exploring the feelings of the summoner Dona in the game.
Spotlight
by flame mage
**********
They say that our childhood experiences determine our future. Someone who was burned as a small child is far more likely to be afraid of fire as an adult than others. A child who nearly drowns at the beach may have a fear of swimming later in life.
By the same token, a woman who was ignored and neglected as a child will always strive to be in the spotlight.
*****
My name is Dona.
Of course, calling a lady summoner by her first name would be unimaginably rude. To you, my name is Lady Dona--at least today. Before long, my impassively beautiful statue will stand in every temple across the land, and the plaque will read "High Summoner Dona."
I can imagine those heavy stone replicas of myself, staring down with cold eyes at the firelit chambers of the temples, guarding the entrances to the Cloisters of Trials. Long after I am gone, my image will live on to watch my successor take his or her first steps into the clutches of fate. It will witness the loss of innocence as that child performs the first summoning.
Ah, the summoning. A tradition passed down through the ages in Spira. The tradition of atoning for the sins of the ages, indemnity paid for in blood. Summoners, like butterflies, live for only a short time before succumbing to their fates. They are always young--they have to be, to survive the dangers of the pilgrimage. But while their hair may not have faded to gray and their faces are still unlined by the pressures of a long life, summoners are old in a way that most people will never know. The moment you set foot in the Chamber of the Fayth for the first time, your innocence is ripped from you. There is no turning back. You have condemned yourself in exchange for the salvation of Spira.
In that short life, however, there is much to accomplish. Summoners are required to make a pilgrimage to every temple in Spira. Inside each temple, they pray to the Fayth--spirits that grant them strange mystical beasts called aeons. Only the summoners can call these beasts forth from the sky and harness their power for battle.
But even the awesome power of these aeons is only a training exercise for the real purpose of a summoner. The pilgrimage ends in Zanarkand, the ruined city ravaged a millennium ago. There, the summoner prays to the last fayth and receives the Final Aeon. With this Aeon, he or she calls Sin into one final battle. But there are no victory celebrations for these heroes. The breath taken before calling forth that Final Aeon is the summoner's last, because that act kills the summoner.
Everyone knows it. No one talks about it. Everywhere I go, I hear the whispers and see the stares. I used to whirl on all the people who were watching me and demand to know what they were talking about. It took me a long time to figure out that I was never going to get an answer and to learn to pass by with my head held high like a lady, ignoring it all.
In fact, I had to learn to do everything like a lady, which, if you'll excuse my use of the vernacular, was no picnic. I told everyone who asked--and a lot of people who didn't--that I was from a wealthy family in Bevelle. The upper-crust, high-society, tea-sipping, ballgown-wearing, practically-royalty kind of family. I was the proper young daughter who would have become a debutante and married someone from another one of the Bevellian "best families" if destiny hadn't called me to be a summoner. Oh, how my parents and younger siblings wept to see me leave, but they knew that I was only sacrificing myself to protect them from the evil ravaging of Sin! What a noble, pure young maiden I was!
Hah. And if you believe that, I have some real estate in Zanarkand I'd like to sell you, you sucker.
Forgive me; it seems I'm forgetting myself. I am the Lady Summoner Dona. I have told that story so many times that there are moments when even I can almost believe it's the truth.
As much as it shames me to admit it, my noble parentage is...my, I can feel myself slipping again; I must apologize...but it's absolute crap. I'm not from Bevelle. My family wasn't rich. Yevon, I don't even know who my family was. My earliest memories are of an orphanage in a little village on the Djose Highroad that was later destroyed by Sin.
That, incidentally, was where I met Barthello, my adoring if slightly dimwitted guardian. I must have been around thirteen at the time. I had made the mistake of insulting the intelligence of a group of ruffians, boys a little older than I, and they turned on me. The consequences might've been dire if Barthello, who was completely infatuated with me, hadn't stepped in to protect him. His worshipful attitude and awe at merely being allowed to be in my presence combined with his thickheaded willingness to undertake any quest for my sake and his excellent fighting skills made him a natural guardian. Of course, when I suggested it, he was absolutely thrilled at the prospect.
Ah, Barthello. My darling numbscull. I'm a little loath to admit this as well, but we really do make a good team. I provide the brains of the operation, he the brawn. What will you do when I'm gone, Barthello? Will you find another scantily-clad princess-wannabe and take her as the object of your affections?
He was the only one who cared when I announced, at age 15, that I was going to become a summoner. Perhaps I did it *because* no one else cared. I was a plain child, with dark, ruddy skin and dirty black hair that hung limply around my face. I had no parents. Looking back on it, my only true friend was Barthello. No one was interested in my pronouncement. I had sentenced myself to death to make them notice me, and it didn't work.
But once I had started, there was no turning back. They did not notice my courage, but they would have noticed my cowardice.
That, you see, is the beautiful irony of the life of a summoner. Summoners who defeat Sin are revered for obvious reasons, given the title of High Summoner and a statue in every temple from Besaid to Bevelle. Summoners who die along the way are also venerated and honored. Offerings are made to the temples in their names, all of Yevon prays for them, and a whole new wave of believers are inspired to become summoners. But let that summoner turn back, or fail to receive an aeon, or decide that she values her life...and she is forever shunned as a coward by the world. Spira loves summoners--but only when they are dead. Living summoners are worthless.
But a pilgrimage is a long process. Some can take a year or more. For that year, I would be the most famous and respected woman in all of Spira. Every man would desire me, every woman desire to be me. My hair and clothing style would be imitated all over the land, even in places of high fashion like Luca and Bevelle. I'd get the best table at every restaurant and the best room in every hotel. For someone who had spent a lifetime in the shadows, passing unnoticed through the world, that year of glory would be worth dying for.
But it was not to be.
Why, you ask? I was a summoner. I was Spira's salvation. I was beautiful now, and I was careful always to wear outfits that showed off my body to best advantage. I had learned to speak and act in a cultured way. I was intelligent, gorgeous, and noble. By all rights, I should have become Spira's darling. But someone else, a little girl who started her pilgrimage mere weeks before mine, beat me to it.
Her name was Yuna.
She was a mere child at seventeen, fresh-eyed and open-hearted. She was not as jaded as I, not by a long shot. Her constant smile and laughter rang in the ears and the eyes and the hearts of everyone in Spira. With her mouse-brown hair, she wasn't even all that pretty. She was not particularly driven except by her own sheer will, and she traveled with a noisy horde of guardians that I wouldn't have been able to stand.
The difference between her and all the other fresh-faced little tramps that die along the road to Zanarkand was that one of her guardians was Sir Auron. She, unlike me, really was from Bevelle. She was the daughter of High Summoner Braska, the champion of the last Calm.
She didn't have to do anything. She would have been the favorite by the mere power of her bloodline! Whereas I, I who had worked so hard to become everything Spira needed, was cast by the wayside. Ignored. Rejected. Thrown on the trash heap.
I have suffered for my destiny. I have been attacked, mauled by fiends, kidnapped and held prisoner by a band of heathen savages, and dragged all over Spira on a sacreligious flying ship. I have performed the sending more times than I care to remember. I have seen the way the people of Spira suffer, and I have vowed to end that suffering.
But I have also been upstaged, again and again and again, and I will tolerate it no longer. I have fought my whole life to be seen, and seen I will be. I will defeat Sin and send it into oblivion once and for all. Braska's daughter will not have the glory that is to be mine.
I have made my choice. I have accepted my path. I am going to summon the Final Aeon and die.
But I am going to do it in the spotlight.
