Rest
By: emeraldoni
xxx
His eyes are dark sometimes. She doesn't know if he is remembering the past, but it scares her all the same, because during those moments she doesn't exist. She is a phantom, some girl who saved his world, some girl who is ridiculous and pretentious and not worth his time. And sometimes his eyes will lighten, not clashing with his pure white hair any longer, and he will look at her and see a human.
He will not see the High Summoner. He will not see a sphere hunter. He will not see a girl in love with a ghost. He will see Yuna.
And she will sigh in relief because she's assured him plenty of times that she loves him (not him). But her memories will never leave her and he will always have a part of her heart. She loved him. She loves him. But she is not High Summoner Yuna any longer. She died. Her soul went up in a display of pyre-flies when he disappeared (never to come back, never, never, never…).
So she is with the leader of Bevelle now, and he loves her. He does not love her title or her accomplishments, or her popularity. He loves the way she blushes when he kisses her in public, and the way she'll hold his hand timidly. Her mismatching eyes will stare up at him and the world falls away, and he is warm and comforted and everything is okay.
He loves her so much it hurts when he sees guilt flash across her beautiful, beautiful eyes.
Because he knows that she has been transported back to a time when he was the pitiful enemy who had lost himself. When he was a nobody, and she loved another man (dead, dead, gone forever, dead).
She still has hope. And she sometimes wonders what her answer would be if the Fayth offered him back to her. (Spira, she loved him, loves him? Loved him. She doesn't know. What about Baralai?)
No, she would say to them. Her heart has been replaced with someone else. He has dark eyes and a dark side and a shaky temper but he loves her and will never leave. At night he whispers in her ear, when she can't see his gentle expression in the shifting darkness, about how wonderful she really is, and she can't help but run her fingers through his hair, down his cheek, across his lips.
(Baralai, Baralai, Tidus, Baralai.)
And like her eyes, her emotions clash, and he sees it and it hurts them both, because her old heart hangs like a shackle around her new one. Her new heart strains against it, but to no avail. Day by day she changes her mind, and her old heart slowly rusts away.
(But the hymn doesn't. The past will never leave her. He new self was born from the past. Such shame, such guilt. She shouldn't be happy. She loves him.)
Sometimes she runs, to someone from the past. To Rikku. To Cid. To the ruins of Zanakand, where they once had a fire, and he learned that his home (a dream, a dream, he is only a dream) was only the remains of a city long dead.
Then Baralai will find her (because no matter how independent and secular he is, he can't live without her) and take her home. And she will love him for it.
She reminds herself that that world is gone. This is a good one. The Eternal Peace.
And so she lays him to rest, as Baralai gives her everything she desires, and the world is beautiful.
She reminds herself that Baralai is her lover now.
(But he is always in her dreams.)
And there is no way he will come back
They lay to rest.
xxx