Chapter 1 –

Spirit

The unsung goddess of Dawn breathed life across the seas, rolling onto Kilika Island with each spray of ocean mist. Her brief moments of splendor were quiet and colorful, but were rejected as the tide pulled her back out to the mainland. As soon as feet hit floors and people began their prayers to Yevon. The all-seeing, all-hearing Yevon who did not make the sun rise, the waves crash, the moon glow. Yevon gave hope . . . and that was all that Spira needed. They could have been dancing in the dark, but they would be dancing for the hope Yevon brought.

Today in Kilika, the villagers would dance for Yevon as much as they pleased. All they needed was a word of confirmation, an acknowledgement that the spirit of Ifrit had awakened to someone's call, and they would dance.

Feira awoke to the blazing, glorious Kilikan sun that had risen only minutes earlier. Her eyes flew open, pupils fleeing into their dull gray-green caverns, and a smile etched itself onto her thin lips. Today was the day that she had been waiting for, training for. Living for.

"Are you awake, Feira?" her mother called from the outer room just beyond the makeshift curtain door. "The great spirit of Ifrit has no patience for lazy bums!"

"I'm up, I'm up," the summoner-in-training said brightly. "Let me wash up and stretch." She threw her cozy blankets off of her, watching them flop dejectedly at her feet, and at up on the side of her bed.

Her furniture was tinted the fierce hues of the island sun already, a single steady beam throwing itself diagonally across the floor. She stepped into it slowly, raking her fingers through her hair, and walked with composure to her water basin.

Humming one of her little songs, Feira's mother was bustling about by the fire, preparing her daughter's favorite breakfast of fried hawk eggs and fish strips, cooked cruelly in fish oil. It may have been the last day this mere teenager of 19 would rise from her sun-bathed cocoon with familiar bedhead, eat a fresh breakfast gathered by her father, and go about her cheerful day.

Today I become a summoner, Feira thought as she dried off her face and then stretched her arms above her head. Everyone will know where Kilika is, and flock here to erect a statue to . . . "High Summoner Feira Enlot!" she exclaimed, charging through the curtain with her arms waving.

"Feira, that is no way for a summoner to act," her mother sighed.

Embarrassed and restless, Feira eased herself into a seat at the small dining table out front. "Sorry, mom," she said meekly to the floor. "Um, where's Dad?"

"He went to go visit Arken and Nero for a bit," her mother replied, setting down the full plate in front of her. "He's so nervous, he forgot where they lived for a minute."

Just the mention of those two names brought a smile back to Feira's face with new life. Arken and Nero had been chosen willingly as her guardians for her summoner pilgrimage, since they had lived in Kilika their entire lives and trained under the monks. The three of them were inseparable and complemented each other–Nero was always clumsy, Arken strict, and Feira the peacekeeper between them.

Originally, some monks from Djose were to come, but she refused their company. Her friends were the best warriors in town, and their devotion to her was more than just a blind arrangement by tradition. She much preferred to struggle through this with friends than with strangers who could just leave her.

All this she pondered as she ate, staring absently out the window at the sea. She would never again see the water so calm and inviting–not when she traveled by monstrous boats that tore the glassy surface apart.

But this is to bring peace, she assured herself. To bring the Calm . . . to defeat Sin once and for all.

Spira is counting on me.

When she finished, she changed into her favorite robes that sang of her love for the earth and brought out the luster in her unruly brown hair. Unlike the colorful robes of the monks and the summoners before her, hers were the color of sand with a light brown sash about her waist. They gave off the feeling of being a chameleon, or a sexless vessel for the bidding of the temple.

Few would look at her as more than a beacon of hope. Few would love her for more than what she stood for, and many would hate her if she failed. She hadn't heard of a summoner who had come back in failure; many just perished along the way, and their stories went untold by the disapppointed denizens of Spira.

Just as she was about to leave, her father stumbled into the hut with a grin on his face. "Daddy!" she exclaimed, flying over to him and hugging him tightly. Her robes flew around them, losing his midsection in their folds as he embraced her in return. Though he looked disheveled and tired, he nuzzled the top of her head and held her close. "How are you doing, gorgeous?"

"Fine," she chirped. "We were just about to leave."

For a moment his mouth moved every-which-way soundlessly, trying to think of something to say. It had just dawned on him that he had wasted precious time by being out, and now he was about to send her into the hands of the fayth. "Oh," he finally sounded, trying to keep his smile stable as he pulled away. "Well, I don't want to make you late. The monks. They . . . t-they are . . ."

The air in their house suddenly became unbelievably tense, emotions jerking around inside of bodies that refused to let them out. Feira was the first to break out of the frozen scene, putting her hands on his broad shoulders. "They're waiting, I know."

"Yeah." His lips thinned out into a grim line. "So are your friends. Arken and Nero. I just talked to them."

Again, no one said anything, and the summoner filled the void that seemed to be pushing them all apart. "Mommy told me. Are you okay? You normally don't choke up over things." She pushed his hair out of his tanned face and then pushed up the colorful tie that he had on his forehead. Though her father was an aging man, he was still very much alive and had a head of hair that could barely be tamed. Its antics amused her now, but he didn't seem to mirror it.

"Feira, you don't seem to acknowledge what you are stepping into," he said hoarsely but firmly. "Yevon has stopped seeing you as a child years ago, when you . . . accepted this path. Today you're going to be on that path, no longer just talking about it. This will be your . . . your life. Do you understand?"

Her eyes froze over, her face concerned and confused. What was suddenly wrong about being excited? Was she supposed to be sad? "I do, daddy," she replied quietly. "I want to do this, even knowing what it means. I'm doing this for Spira. For you." She turned to her mother, who had been biting her lower lip. "I'm doing this especially for you, Mom, because I know Ifrit will accept me," she added.

At that, her mother put her face in her hands and began to sob loudly. Feira stepped forward and embraced her, the folds of her robes protecting her mother as they had her father. They swung around gently like wings, settling at their sides.

"With a head as thick as yours, Ifrit should notice your fiery confidence," her father said with a crack of a smile, resting his arms on both of his girls.

"My head isn't thick," Feira mumbled into her mother's shoulder.

"Perhaps just thick enough that you might be late to meet up with everyone," he said quickly after her. "Come on, ladies. Let's talk as we walk over."

Her parents accompanied her to the temple, where monks bid them both a good morning. The knowing voids stood steady in their eyes, and her mother gave an intimidated whimper.

"Mother, it's all right now," Feira whispered with a small smile. "This is what we wanted."

Her parents would go no further up the stone stairs, knowing the climb would just be that much worse in their age and their collective mental state. Sensing that they had stopped against their will, she turned around slowly and faced them brightly.

At seeing the sunlight break across her daughter's face, firm with youth but determined with the rising of a woman, her mother burst into tears again. "Yevon protect you, child!" she bawled.

As though nobody had spoken to her, Feira trotted halfway up the first set of stairs, then turned on a heel and looked upon her parents with pride. "I will protect Yevon," she exclaimed, fists clenched loosely in determination. "I'll see you both when I return."

They exchanged confused glances as she turned back and began ascending the crumbling steps as she had for years. The sandy stone felt natural to her sandal-clad feet, a muscle memory that would soon mean nothing. The heart of the summoner would guide her feet to Zanarkand.

And no farther, she thought grimly, stopping at last meters closer to the sun. It greeted her gently at the threshold of its manmade shrine, protected by monks who served this being called Yevon rather than the blazing sun itself. It granted Kilika its blessings regardless.

She barely saw the humble temple in her haze, but she saw her guardians, who were waiting ahead for her patiently. Arken was smiling; it was a rare occasion, but rarer still was when a sleepy town had something this large to be proud of. Just as she was to be one of Spira's beacons of hope, Arken's smile was a small beacon to her–it was a sign that something was going right.

"Hail, Lady Feira," Arken said gruffly despite her smile. She was only a year older than Feira, but she looked rather haggard and unkempt. It was not exactly her duty to care, she told herself. "Are you rested?"

"Yes, very well," the summoner replied. "You two must be bored all day, waiting for me and now you have to wait for me again. Aren't your lives exciting," she said sarcastically with a small giggle.

Arken shifted her weight to one leg and clasped her hands in front of her. "They are," she said blandly, giving her fellow guardian, Nero, a nudge. "Still asleep?"

"Yes," he murmured with one eye open. "I had a vision."

Nero was infamous within the temple, if not all of Kilika itself, for his "visions"-- dreams that kept him awake in the smothering blue-blackness of the early morning, and dulled to haunting whispers in his mind with the quiet rising of the sun. These visions were never good ones, and grossly incorrect. Four years ago, Maha, one of the women, was overjoyed to be pregnant with her third child; Nero, then 19, warned her that she would have an awful accident and would not keep the child. She turned out a healthy boy who, now shedding his innocence like dead skin, was a brat with a slingshot. He lived right next door to Nero and, with his pebbles breaking every piece of glass he could find, resented the prediction of his death.

Knowing each outcome of each vision, all of which were vividly detailed for how wrong they were, Arken's smile turned sly. "What was it like?" she asked coyly.

A violent shiver seized his lanky body. "I dare not say it in front of Lady Feira," he sighed. "I don't want to discourage her."

Speaking of which, the summoner coughed into her hand, and her guardians turned to face her. "Wake me up when you guys are ready to go in!" she laughed. "I could have enjoyed my breakfast a little more, slept a little later . . ."

"A thousand apologies, Milady," Nero said, dipping low into a bow. His reddish-brown hair bowed forward as well, standing lopsidedly at attention on his head until he threw himself back into place. "Let us go inside."

The three headed into the squat building protected by the forest's lush overgrowth, from the young morning sun into the reverent candlelight. For a moment, they were blinded by the transition; in the darkness, a silence overcame them that made them feel isolated in a very, very small room. They knew how large the antechamber they stood in was, and how large each chamber beyond was. Except for the Cloister of Trials itself, a fiery mystery to all except summoners. Not even the monks could say for sure what blazed on the other side of the heavy, ornamented doors.

Even with her eyes useless, green and glazed in the darkness, Arken half-turned to her fellow guardian. "Nero. Why so quiet now? You were so excited, waiting for Lady Feira…"

"I-I'm sorry," he sputtered. "I'm nervous for her. Ifrit's fayth is a . . . fierce one. Rambunctious. What if it—"

"Nero," she interrupted. "The fayth are kind to those who pay them tribute, to those who want to see this world free of Sin. They will accept her." Sight came back again, and her face was thinking about a smile. Wherever that thought had come from, it had hopped to Feira's face, which was turned to Arken. "Don't fret for her."

"Okay . . . by Yevon, I don't want to be in your shoes, Feira."

She turned to face them both now, the candlelight arrested in spikes in her blue eyes. "I do. Let's enter."

Side by side, they passed through the dim circular foyer and began their slow ascent up the stairs to the Cloister of Trials. They turned their backs on bowing and praying heads, on blessings and some soft weeping. Together they entered wholly unaware, still innocent. Still able to turn back and go on living with the waves and the sun, watching life bloom slowly.

The ornate doors shut behind them, urging shadows in along and decidedly leaving that innocence to wither on the steps.