I would like to note a source: Dario8676 on Youtube, his Let's Play Final Fantasy X series of walkthrough-episodes are an invaluable source for me while writing this. This story marks the first part of the Iconoclast Cycle.

Prologue: Past Has Not Passed

Blood painted the face of the cliff far below, washing up onto the stone with every surge of the tide. It trickled down from craggy rocks, running in rivulets to be subsumed. Above, pyreflies circled like carrion birds, their striking luminescence hardly comforting. They were symbols of life and death, rising from the slain as they began their cycle of pain again. Here more than ever they carried the weight of the end. The music of life sounded so powerfully muted now. Beyond the promontory lay the holy rotting carcass of the great machina city itself. Wondrous ruined Zanarkand in all its crumbling splendor, a thousand years dashed and dead as the body smashed and emptying down below. A shadow, a scar, and a memory. It remained, though aberrant and forsaken.

They sat, nine in all, 'round a crackling fire. Its heat did little to abate the chill in their hearts, and for some it served as little more than an anchor. A warm, comforting glow to focus on. Better than the alternative. The northern winds blew past, carrying hints of frost on their indiscernible wings, but the flames resisted defiantly, determined not to leave until their meal was done. Its obstinacy went unnoticed.

Wardani sat with his back against the rock, head tipped precariously rearward as he absently watched the flight of the pyreflies. The last of his tobacco burned steadily away in his pipe. After conserving and rationing for weeks on end, this felt like the perfect time to put his store to rest. The odd thought occurred to him that he had never been entirely without any. The question of how he might cope was far from the forefront of his thoughts, however. They flitted about without focus or purpose, shifting at whims both random and unseen. He had no care to really think, and let them flow as they may.

Movement caught his attention. Across the fire his cousin sat, brow forward and mien taught. She drew her leg up, and draped her arm over her knee. Her other hand scribbled inattentively in the dirt. Her usual forthrightness had given way to resolute stoicism. In these circumstances they had both been felled; powerless and without direction. An unwelcome and decidedly distressing sensation that permeated across the camp like a heavy fog.

So very long ago, Wardani had stood waiting outside the temple of Besaid. There he anticipated in equal impotence to the edge of madness and despair. A grey fog had clouded the world and his mind, concealing what the future would come a-carrying. Here he was, faced with so similar a predicament at the end of the road just as at the beginning. He had wanted to scream then, but now he felt an odd resignation. Gone was the wretched drive to fight an enemy he could not harm. Futility was just that. Here it was something.. different. He was certainly at a loss, yet he did not feel so defeated. These woods are thick indeed, he pondered glumly.

His free hand wandered without heed, tracing the scar that crossed his chalky white left eye.

Tidus rose from his seat, and the battlemage turned his attention to the teen. He wondered what the boy was feeling. To see the city he unflinchingly called home – the place he claimed to see destroyed – at last, finally witnessing Sin's work ravaged by the flow of time. Only he kept his eye on the boy, who moved 'round the party and paused behind Yuna. Tidus rested a hand on the summoner's shoulder, and she leaned gratefully into his consoling touch. Lingering for a scant few seconds, the boy carried on for the edge of their camp, climbing up for a better vantage to see out over the relic.

Bored with the sentimentality, Wardani looked away only to latch onto something else. Rod, sword, blitzball, and spear together against the frame of a burning orange sky. A shadow passed over his face, and he averted his eye. He fleetingly pondered the gesture's hidden nature – if it was defiant, or fatalistic. He was not yet dead, therefore it had to have been far from surrender.

A disgruntled growl clawed its way up his throat, and he rocked forward. Pipe plucked from between his teeth, he stared hard at the fire, his mouth settled firmly in a frown. "All this solemn silence," he shrugged away the tyranny of taciturnity, knocking the spent remains from his pipe, "Is getting a mite wearisome." His eyes swept studiously over his companions, regarding each with a moment's passing glance. A dark fire smoldered in the deeps of his eyes, like embers building higher into a roaring blaze. Drawing to a halt on his charge, the four colors of their eyes met. They saw fear, hope, consolation, and disquiet. His gaze tore away without ceremony, descending as he tucked his pipe safely back into its pouch.

Then, nodding as if to some unheard call from afar, he raised his head and rumbled, "It's time to get some real work done."

XXX

The destiny of man will rise like a morning star! Over all horizons this sun will shine, the light breaking forth through veil of night and penetrate- the glare so bright- the ever growing Unholy blight. The Armor that reigned for so many generations now will fail, the plates give way so the sword may prevail. And when its cursed song is sung no more, then let the world rejoice: there is still change yet to come!

We have dreamt in unending sleep for one thousand years. Our bodies taken freely so that our souls might shield those worthy to end the world's suffering. The irony is frightening, that we- whom they call to relieve their plight- are tied, like all others, to the one who forged the Unholy Armor. We come from lands and peoples now bound to chains, forced to watch them cower in fear for their lives. All so that this city of dreams can exist in its opulent falsity. Forced to remake those who long since lived, again and again in different forms. We grow tired of our sleep.

"The destiny of man will rise like a morning star!"

Oh, how it rings in the Farplane! The words have been known to us ever since we joined the dream. When we raised ourselves up in forms grown from our minds. Things that have been long forgotten- secrets concealed in blood and wrapped in skin, barred by bone. Even we do not know its meaning, but there is hope somewhere in the song of our conjoined slumber. It refreshes us, keeps us patient; though the dead have all the time in the world. We watch, and we wait. Ten years ago our virtue was repaid. One man left our city unseen: sailed away to parts unknown, and when he touched Sin... He became real. He entered the world of Spira, and set into motion events that could not be halted.

Our joy was short lived. Amidst the depths a wretched and ineffable force began to move. A suffocating hate permeated, crawling across the vastness of the land of the dead. It moved deeper down, into the farthest reaches of the farthest plane. Where edifices of metal and mortal make still stood, their origins unknown to even us. Where the well of ancient power rests, radiating outward; ever outward. And quietly, without alerting the living above, it went to work.

Like a fire's embers softly catching tender, so did we.