Once Again, I Am:

Cold stone around me. Hard and unyielding: I could not move. My body was trapped in a prison of stone, undying, yet there was no escape. Confused images of worshipping men and women swirled into my mind, and I slowly realised I had awakened. The dreams drifted away like mist before the morning sun, as I struggled to reorganise my thoughts. I failed to recognise the faces of these people, but I grasped a name from their lips: they were referring to me as the Martyr of Zanarkand.

That was not right. I wouldn't say that I'm alive, but I'm definitely not dead enough to be a martyr. Furthermore, I used to have a name, not such a pretentious title that I never asked for, let alone ever wanted. The storm of fleeting images inside my head hindered my understanding even further by providing additional questions, for which I could find no answers. Now, I haven't gotten so far without learning a great deal about self-control: as I focused my thoughts on the matter at hand, the storm died at once, and several answers came to mind; most were not pleasant.

Spira knows me as the Martyr of Zanarkand, a very prestigious honorary title that, coincidentally, is also not particularly accurate as well. I had been in a millennia long slumber, during which I could have only grasped splinters of what happened around me; generations passed one after the other, and yet I kept sleeping in the uttermost indifference. But now I am tired of dreaming: as countless men and women crossed their brief existences with mine, my mind began awakening from this numbing torpor, and I slowly regained awareness of myself.

My ascension to this new form of "life" was due to a particularly nasty side effect from a very powerful spell, right after my last fight against that monstrosity known as Sin: a foolish attempt to destroy that abomination backfired spectacularly, permanently encasing me in stone for the following centuries, while leaving Sin free to roam unchecked across Spira; and although I can not die as long as I am bound in this form, I can't leave it either. The only thing I had left were my magic powers, luckily still strong enough to give me a certain degree of freedom; they are truly worthy of the great Summoner I have become.

I was not the only one who desperately needed some help though, in fact my awakening couldn't have been more well-timed: somewhere nearby, my magic told me, a former warrior-monk's heart was tormented by anger and disillusion, as if he felt betrayed by the very God he believed in; digging deeper into his soul, I discovered that said man had an obsessive desire to reach a certain aim, but he didn't knew how he was supposed to reach it. An extraordinarily determined man can truly do the unthinkable thus, figuring out we might do each other a favour, I gathered my powers and summoned him to me.


Holy Bevelle, 90 years after the Fourth Calm:

A young man was swiftly walking across the corridors of a richly adorned temple, ripping open one door after the other in contempt of the respect that such a holy place deserved. A pious monk would have deemed his irreverence towards my sanctuary almost blasphemous, but since midnight had long since passed, nobody was there to complain. Apparently said man wasn't well aware of the way towards my chamber, because he kept getting lost among the countless corridors that formed the largest and most venerated temple on Spira.

I was already aware of his presence, and not only due to his loud noises: I had imbued this temple with my powers over time, and my control over it was now absolute. Every single step on its floor is a gentle touch on my skin; a prayer to me is a whisper in my ear; every time its holy walls are blessed with incense, I breathe it through my lungs; its statues and portraits are my ever-vigilant eyes. Each and every part of my temple is an extension of my body; nothing happens there that I am not aware of.

As this irreverent warrior-monk opened yet another door to a dead-end, I decided it was time to give him a hand, so that he didn't have to find my inner sanctum by trial and error. To get his attention, I blew off all the lights but one, so that he had to reach it if he wanted to see; I then lit a second light not far from the first, then a third and a fourth, slowly forming a path that would have led him right into my chamber.

He must had realised what I had done, because he sped up his pace to reach each next light. To not confuse him, I locked every door that might have deviated him from the right way. Soon, he got into one of the few Machinas that still existed, an elevator that would have led him to me, and waited for me to make it function. To hasten the whole process, I rearranged the elevator's operation, so that it didn't have to stop at every floor.

As soon as the elevator stopped at the lowest level, the man crossed the circular antechamber that preceded my inner sanctum and aimed towards the last door before me, apparently not hampered by the heavy smell of incense and holy oil that was in the air. On his way, he also ignored the garlands and other similar offerings that were adorning the room, recent gifts from pilgrims who though they owed their lives to me.

Not concerned at all with his surroundings, he finally entered my room, but stopped right after the threshold: the room was empty to his eyes, because I had not decided yet to appear. After a second, he took a chance by addressing directly to the void: "You said you could help me find a friend. Is it true?" He had refused to be specific, and from his tone of voice it was clear he was unsure whether to trust me or not; I couldn't have blamed him, after all he had been through.

Unfortunately, I was also partially responsible for what happened to him in the first place thus, by revealing him my true identity, I would have lost his trust. That is why, when I met him for the first time, I had to use a simple illusion as a disguise; nothing complex, I merely reduced my height to the one of a ten years old child, and added a hood to hide my face. And tonight, to keep up appearances, I showed myself to him with the same disguise.

"I know where he is, but getting you there might be a little complicated. You know, creating a portal is difficult when the destination keeps moving. And if it weren't for your "condition", not even my powers would have sufficed, I am afraid. Are you still sure about this?" No point in sending him, if he wasn't determined enough to run the risk of appearing in the middle of the ocean. His answer would have told me if I had chosen well.

"Humph. Do I look like I have anything else to lose?" That's what I wanted to hear. "Very well, I shall begin creating a portal at once, then. It will take several minutes before it is fully opened, though." He shrugged. "I have time." I began circumscribing the area in which the spell would have taken place. "Feel free to have a look around in the meantime, I'll call you when it is ready. We'll talk then." He nodded and left me alone with a complex spell to cast.


I began pouring energy from my imprisoned body. Long ago, such an effort would have left me exhausted, if not outright dead from the exertion. And tonight I was about to cast a spell that would have fatigued even the most powerful Summoners. There was no need to hurry, I had all the time I wanted. Haste, I knew from experience, was the greatest enemy of all ill-conceived plans. Even the slightest mistake in such a delicate process could have had disastrous consequences. That poor fellow could have ended up virtually anywhere on Spira, provided he got there in one piece, off course.

But there was no need to fear the worst. I was fully aware of my limits, I knew the difference between what was possible and what was not. Afterall, I had already learned a severe lesson from my past, hadn't I? How could anything go so wrong once again? And with such a thought, the slight smile on my lips died at once. At the time, my mind was fixed on a relatively simple task, to destroy Sin once and for all. Achieving enough power to fulfill that goal, though, proved to be harder than I initially thought. I exploited people, I lied to them, I gave them false hopes so that they would sacrifice everything they had to follow me. And when I failed, they were those who paid the most.

What about my newfound friend? Was he any different from them? Or was he just another puppet in my hands, a useful but also perfectly expendable tool? How many other people could I hold on my conscience? I if could, I would have put my hands on my blonde hair. My silence and complacency, how much sorrow have they caused? And I who kept deluding myself into thinking that it was for the greater good! When did I became such a horrible person? No. My methods were questionable, my intentions were pure. I was one of the few who had the means to destroy Sin: the only doubt was whether to use them or not. Neither of these two choices was inherently right; with my reasoning being that the necessity to stop Sin outweighed the moral reservations by a wide margin, I chose the former over the latter.

But what about nowadays? Was history just about to repeat itself? I did not knew yet, and the thought scared me. I needed time to think about it. I had plenty. If everything I had done so far had been for naught, then I would have dismissed the warrior-monk with my "most sincere apologies"; any excuse should have sufficed in this sense. On the other hand, if my plan had turned out to be the only feasible option, I would have had no other choice but to pursue it once again. The easiest way to get an answer was to relive all my past life before my eyes, thus I began digging into my memory.