A/N: Written for the Diversity Writing Challenge, #b11 - write a fic between 750-850 words
Carrying Soul
There were many possibilities, and all of them decreed her fate had been written for her before she was born.
She wanted to think it was her choice still, and she did. There was no-one to tell her otherwise, though they thought. After all, she was the High Summoner who'd defeated Sin. She was the performer and the songstress of the Gullwings who'd brought the people in turmoil together. She was the hero of Spira, the figurehead. In essence she was a God and perhaps one day it would corrupt her, destroy her – just like Machina had destroyed Zanarkand and brought a thousand years of sorrow to Spira.
But they still existed in a fragile peace, a calm tranquillity that had shaken once but been restored and restored, in part, thanks to her. So she was free to believe what she wished and none spoke otherwise whether out of awe or fear or respect or something else.
Or maybe she simply didn't hear the words, and she could believe they weren't said, weren't thought because he was back in her arms, her life.
And it was Tidus this time, not Shuyin, and not a ghost in spheres she had hunted.
But Tidus had himself said he was a dream. A dream of the fayth, from Zanarkand.
Tidus…who looked so like Shuyin…even though Yuna would say it was the other way around because it was Tidus she knew, and Shuyin was just a figment of the past, an unsent…
But there were many people she had come to know who had turned out to be unsent. Some had been mere thorns. Others enemies they'd fought time and time again. And others still dear friends… like Auron…
But none were dearer than Tidus.
But Tidus had been a dream, created by the fayth.
A dream of what? Yuna tried not to wonder because that led to other thoughts. She tried to forget the dream as well. She could almost always pretend that him not vanishing into the waters of Besaid was enough proof of his life, but it was just her attempting to put reason to something unreasonable and deep down she knew it. She had simply gotten good at tucking that miserable truth away under confusion and light and love and other things.
She'd gotten used to her little paradise and happily ever after ending, and there was only that small part of her that was restless and refused to settle down. A small part of her that still wanted to thumb out the mystery that was Tidus.
The mystery forged by Lenne and Shuyin and undying feelings.
Tidus had been a dream, created by the fayth. And the fayth had chosen the form of Shuyin. Why? Because of Lenne was the answer Yuna could give. Because Lenne had been one of their most promising summoners and one who didn't die facing Sin, and the one the fayth had chosen to pin their hopes on.
Lenne had died and passed into the Farplanes, and a thousand years later had been reincarnated into Yuna. And thus the fayth knew it was time and created Tidus, because Shuyin could not reincarnate. Shuyin was caught in anger and despair and a thousand year old shadow-like existence. They created Tidus as the light. As the boy Shuyin would have been, had been, before the Machina war and Sin. And meanwhile, there was Yuna, growing in Bevelle, in Besaid.
And then she became a summoner and Tidus found his way to her.
She didn't like that explanation, because it meant their pairing, their love, was a fated one. Predetermined. That was hardly fair. Lenne, she felt four. She really did, especially when faced with Shuyin in that final time. But she was not Lenne. She was Yuna. High summoner and then performer. Not performer turned summoner. And Tidus was Tidus. But the distinctions there were easier to see, because Tidus had not chosen the path of the world's destruction to save Yuna. Perhaps it hadn't been an option, but he had made his choice nonetheless. And it was a choice Shuyin could also have made but had not.
So Tidus was Tidus and that was a distinction easy to see, and it was almost ironic because Tidus was the dream and Yuna was the one who had been born, who would grow, who would die while the dream continued or came to an end. Or perhaps her wish had been granted to her and this Tidus would grow with her, die with her. Perhaps they'd even have a child like Lulu and Wakka – or several. Then Tidus could teach them to play blitzball and Yuna could teach them to sing and both of them could teach them many other things…
But she wondered if that small, at most times buried, part of her would ever stop doubting, stop wondering if this love she felt for him was from herself or from Lenne and Shuyin, and the destiny they'd passed on.