It wasn't right, really, Baralai was sure of it. Well, there was nothing expressly wrong with it -- Lord Braska had married an Al Bhed, after all -- but it wasn't quite... orthodox. Once, when he had been praying in the temple, he had heard some priests talking about the new statue of Lord Braska. "A trouble maker," they'd said, "it's a good thing he was a summoner and not a priest. They catch people's fancy for a moment, but then they're dead for the greater good, and people eventually forget."

Baralai was ambitious. He was calm and kind, polite enough to blind people to his ambition, but one day, he had vowed to be something good. He'd never forgotten what the priests had said -- nothing but a few scraps of folklore and a vague gratefulness survived a summoner's sacrifice for long. Somehow, he didn't like the idea of becoming just a handful of statues, a name, and some encouraging tale.

He was sure that, were anyone to discover the feelings growing in him, they would make sure that he would be forgotten entirely.

But there was a certain appeal in Gippal, even if he was an Al Bhed. He was cheerful, expressive -- you always knew where you were with him. Even the eyepatch didn't make him a mystery, and he was willing to explain to anyone willing to listen all about the monster he had fought, the way he had won -- the loss of his eye a minor wound, glossed over. (There was one thing everyone grudgingly admitted about the Al Bhed, if it ever came up -- they had guts.)

He was open, in a way that no one else Baralai knew was. And that had a certain magnetism all on its own.

And he was good looking. Baralai admitted that freely, because it felt silly to deny it. Gippal was good looking, and when Baralai dreamed of him he was always embarrassed on waking. He hated feeling so hopelessly attracted to an Al Bhed.

Baralai wasn't sure, he'd never felt that way before, but he thought he might even be falling in love with Gippal.