let him fly
- starlight
There's no mercy in the live wire
No rest at all in freedom
Of the choices we are given it's no choice at all
The proof's in the fire
You touch before it moves away
But you must always know how long to stay and when to go
- Patty Griffin
"Don't go, Sir Luzzu," She stretches out her arms like wings, with hanging sleeves like dove feathers flapping in the wind. Always so formal, Yuna. Always so sweet and sugary and saccharine. But you're sincere, aren't you? You don't want me to go, you don't want me to strain toward the oblivion, fighting a one handed battle against death.
I don't know why you even bother. I could say the same to you, couldn't I? Don't go, Lady Yuna, infant summoner, daughter of gods and men. Don't travel that road with your head turned backwards, eyes stuck on the steps behind you, never wanting to accept, never wanting to give in.
You're going to die, Yuna. You're going to journey and love and hate and bleed and cry and laugh and dance that cursed dance and then you're going to die. It won't be glorious, Yuna. It won't be beautiful and graceful and everything that you are. It will be brutal and ugly, you'll cry tears of blood as your life slowly ebbs, sucked away by the sins of our fathers and mothers.
And after all that pain and bleeding and sacrificing of life, it will come back. Don't say it's worth it. Because its not. It never was. You can spin your pretty lies fed to you by the priests and monks, you can sing songs about how peace and sleeping soundly, lulled by thoughts of refuge is worth dying for. You can pretend that everything your doing isn't meaningless. But you know it is, because someday, there will be another Yuna, with a different face and different eyes, but the same mind and same strong, stubborn-as-iron resolve that will lead her off, marching, marching, marching. Marching that death march. The she could even be a he, but that wouldn't make a difference. It would still be a Yuna, Braska, Ohalland. It would still be someone's sister, brother, mother, father, child. And when the cheers rang out at the end of all things, there would still be the bitterness of utter and complete futility.
Don't go, Sir Luzzu. Don't fight, don't die, don't allow yourself to live a little more than you are now. I'm nothing, Yuna. Nothing but a shell, just like you, just like Lulu, just like Wakka, just like every damn person in Spira. We're all shells, we're all broken and wasted and fading away. My smile is paper thin, and it tears, it tears down every damn day, because I remember and I smell and I see and I taste all that is Sin everyday. It's in their faces, its in the brokenness of sighs and cracked voices, it weighs down the air, oppresses it till the whole world is suffocating and just waiting, waiting to die. I saw it my mothers face, contorted in pain, not screaming for father, but screaming for absolution from some formless religion that bases its teachings upon green fields stained with blood. Do you think she's in the Farplane, Yuna? Do you think she's calmly drifting amongst the rivers and eddies and barren fields?
Is that why you fight, Yuna? Is it for those broken faces and shattered dreams? Is it for the dead or the dying? I don't know why you care. I don't know why you gave in. Was it because of Braska? Are you going through the motions, Yuna? Are you allowing your life to be orchestrated by the aged and lifeless?
I fight, Yuna, because I have to. I fight and break and bleed so one day Wakka can finally tell Lulu that she's his sun and moon and stars. I shatter my bones so Lulu can push him down, tell him he's nothing-something-everything at once, so she can realize after all her screams and curses that he is her pillar of stone and tears, buoying her sorrow and filling her with life.
I fight so you don't have to. I fight so you can grow old and fat and happy, living on your island of dreams with your perfect husband of gold. So you can have 2.5 children and a white picket fence with a furry dog named Rover.
I fight because I wish that man was me. Me and my pinkish-red hair that always made you laugh. I fight because you gave me garlands of flowers, squashed between dainty fingers and molded into withered perfection and smiled at me and made me want to fly.
I fight because you're my light darkened by shadows. I fight because I gave you seashells the color of morning and blue feathers. I fight because everyday I saw you was a day that I knew life was worth living. I fight because I hated-loved-cursed you when you sold your soul to your beliefs. Because you never knew, because I never had the courage to tell you that you were my everything, because without you I would have no reason to breathe or even exist.
I know its clichéd but I fight because I love you. I don't want you to die, Yuna, so I'll cut my wrists upon the back of Sin and bleed into nothingness instead. I don't want you to fall upon the Calm Lands, body broken and torn like a child's rag doll, staring into the sky and wondering, wondering if it was worth it.
"I have to, Yuna"
Even though you'll never know why. The man in red says its because we're the same, and that's what you'll believe. You'll think we're both dying for the good of Spira, so priests can grow fatter and Mica can place diamonds in his throne of gold. I don't care about them, I don't care about those lost faces, weak so weak. They don't fight for me, they don't fight for you. They hide in closets, clutching their lives to their chests with iron-metal grips. They're feeble and cowardly and don't understand that this is their world too.
Your face falls, but you move, not because you know, but you understand. I try to smile, but fail miserably. I want to tell you, because that's what soldiers are supposed to do. They're supposed to hold their precious ones close their hearts, stroke their chocolate-brown hair and tell them they'll protect them. I want to, but I know I won't. I never could.
So, I walk away, knowing I'll never see you again. You know it too, don't you? I can see the tears in the corner of your eyes, begging to fall, begging to wet the ground like holy rain. But this the way it has to be, because the differences in thought are irreconcilable. We're both blind, Yuna. Blind in our battle against misery and death, and there is nothing we can do about.
So, I'll walk away. Because I have to.