A/N: I haven't written a fic in yeeears, so I don't know if my writing has gotten any better. I'd love any constructive criticism regarding typos or errors of any sort, or if you just have any advice for me on improving my writing! Anyway, so the bulk of this story takes place in a time about 200 years before Yuna's with an original cast. I know those stories aren't really that popular, but please give it a chance. I hoped it might be interesting to write on a different summoner's journey. So, please enjoy, and definitely don't forget to revieeeww!
Btw, this chapter is really just an introduction, so if you want to just go straight to the actual story, skipping this chapter won't really affect the plot in any way. It's only this chapter that will really take place during present-day Spira.
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Summary: Yevon dictated the life and fate of its believers throughout Spira. Yevon gave birth to summoners, and it was only a summoner who had the power to defeat Sin, then a celebrated Calm always followed. Yevon only knew five great summoners who accomplished such a feat, but what if there had been others? The people merely knew what Yevon told them, right? Well, this is a story of a forgotten Calm brought by a summoner that Yevon couldn't acknowledge, one born of Al Bhed blood--the story of how a Calm came to be in a time of conspired rebellion against the Yevon order.
A Forgotten Calm
Introduction
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"So, do you think this sphere's really what it looks like?" a woman asked, picking up the blue object. She turned it on to see one more time.
Although it was a fairly aged sphere, it definitely wasn't the oldest one found. The image was fuzzy at first, but cleared up with time. There really wasn't much to listen to; all it was, really, was a recording of some sort of march in the Calm Lands, recorded behind a large crowd of people. It wasn't a celebration, since no one seemed to be cheering, in fact, the solemn silence almost made this seem like a death march. The sphere appeared to be focused on a young woman clad in a beautiful white dress. Following by her were what looked like escorts or guards, and judging by their protective garments, they were definitely Crusaders. Nothing in the sphere would have been regarded as too important if it weren't for a youthful voice crying in the background, "It's you! Lady High Summoner! Hey! Do you remember me?" From the surrounding crowds came running a little boy no older than perhaps 8 years, but the recording ended there.
"A sphere from 205 years ago," she said.
"I know, it's weird," another man commented. The desert wind picked up outside, blowing some loose sand into their tent. He sputtered and rubbed his dried eyes. "Man, how do people live out here? And what's taking so long for them to get here?"
"If you haven't noticed, the Al Bhed do wear goggles," the woman replied.
"Shut up. Anyway, we did check Yevon's records, and obviously, there were only 4 High Summoners before Lady Yuna. Lord Gandof defeated Sin about 400 years ago and Lord Ohalland a little over 100 years after him."
"Then there was Lady Yocun, 180 years after that."
The two turned to the man entering the tent.
"Rammu! Hello, and please excuse my lateness. I'm Juma, nice to meet you," he greeted, taking his goggles off and putting his hand out to shake. "I take it you're the sphere researchers they told me about?"
"Yeah, I'm Milo," the man replied and shook his hand.
"Nell. Nice to meet you, too," the woman followed.
"So umm, we recently found this sphere in the Calm Lands," Milo explained and handed it to Juma, who took a brief moment to watch it.
"It was strange. We've figured out that it was recorded about 200 years ago. As you can see, that girl is referred to as a High Summoner, but she clearly isn't Lady Yocun," Nell explained.
"So," Milo added, "we did a bit of research in Bevelle. Came up with nothing."
"But, when we showed this sphere to a few other colleagues, someone recognized her from a different sphere, and told us that this girl was an Al Bhed."
"An Al Bhed summoner…kind of an oxymoron, don't you think?" Milo asked rhetorically. "Well, we did some more digging, and there is apparently a story about said summoner, a tale really."
Nell rolled her eyes at his exaggerated tone. "So, he told us there were some people in Guadosalam who knew a bit more about this story. We went there and asked around. Eventually we came across an old antique collector, who gave us this old journal belonging to a Guado from about the same time as that sphere. And…"
"It talks about our summoner," Milo concluded. "Thank you for listening quietly, Juma, but there's more! She also gave us a different sphere that belonged to the girl who wrote this journal. We watched it, and to our surprise, she apparently knew the explorer Riezel, who made a short appearance in the recording."
"And of course, any explorer or researcher today knows who the great Riezel was. She was close with the Al Bhed, so we were hoping to find any records she left behind at all that might be here at Bikanel," Nell explained.
Juma took a brief pause. "Well, yes we had many of Riezel's journals and spheres…"
"Had…?" Milo asked.
"Home…did get blown up, and most of those records with it, but, the story of an Al Bhed summoner…that's a tale that we never thought Yevonites were ever familiar with."
"So, you know about it?" Milo's face lit up.
"Of course. You're pretty lucky to be talking to me right now; I know even more about it through my research of Riezel's exploration. She knew the summoner personally. In fact, come with me," Juma said.
The two Yevonite explorers looked at each other before they followed their Al Bhed guide out of the tent. The winds had died down a bit from earlier, so it wasn't as uncomfortable to tread through the yellow sand across the camp. Juma led them to a larger tent some meters away. Inside, he rummaged through a chest filled with spheres, picking and choosing each and checking their labels. Finally, after finding the correct one, he pulled the object out from the chest.
"This was Riezel's. Go ahead, watch it," he said, handing the sphere to the two.
Nell took it and turned it on. When the image appeared, it showed a clear setting along the Mi'ihen route, proving how unchanged Spira really had been though its dark years. The scene of the sea sunset shifted to the face of a young girl—wavy, shoulder-length blond hair, eyes of a bluish shade with the prominent spiraled pupils of an Al Bhed. She stared straight into the sphere looking slightly confused.
"Is this working?"
The girl spoke perfectly without any accent. She looked away at an unseen person.
"She's kinda cute," Milo said, grinning at the sphere. The other two stared at him.
"Ugh, have some respect, will you?" Nell scolded.
"Hey, all I said was that she's pretty. What, just 'cause you're a summoner, other people can't think you look nice? Besides, I don't think she's as pretty as Lady Yuna… Yeah, she's got a nice—"
His ramblings earned him a hard kick in the shin from Nell, who seemed to be more than comfortable with doing it. Juma was afraid to know how these two interacted when others weren't around.
"Back to the sphere, you dumbass," she ordered.
The view of the sphere shifted to another young woman.
"That's…!" Nell nearly cried out.
"Riezel, yeah," Juma cut in.
"Gimme that."
The sphere closed up on her eye and back out again.
"It's fine, here."
"So, umm. I don't really know what to say."
"Well, for starters, talk a little about yourself or something. It's like a biography. Say whatever you want. I'll just go sit over there, and tell me when you're done."
"All right then. So… Well, my name is Zhara, and I, I guess…I'm a summoner—sort of, from Luca. I'm also an Al Bhed; I was raised by my surrogate uncle, Nikolas, who was a summoner himself, but he isn't here anymore… So right now I'm journeying for the sake of Spira. And…um, well here are the people who are traveling with me."
The sphere shifted and focused on two Guados standing in the distance, talking.
"That's Sedona and her younger brother Kiran; their mother is Lady Padma Guado. They're two good friends of mine. Sedona is a great doctor and Kiran is a skilled blitzball player, and he's the only one who can swim faster than me, haha."
The two waved happily after noticing the sphere recording them, then it turned to an older man staring off into the sunset with his long, narrow sword thrust into the dirt beside him.
"That Sedona girl must've been the one who wrote the journal the lady gave us," Milo commented.
"And that there is Sheridan. He used to be a Crusader and a friend of Uncle Nikolas, but something seemed to happen between them… I just met him again the other day at Mushroom Rock. It's great to see him again. He's hasn't changed one bit from last time I saw him, just a little aged."
Once again the view moved on to another two, Riezel and a man speaking to her by the entrance of a nearby inn.
"And of course… That's Riezel, the 'Great Explorer' Riezel speaking to umm, my…brother, Jeudiel. I just met him again, too…after over 10 years. He doesn't seem all too different from what I remember. It's sort of…weird, actually. But I'm grateful that he's really still alive; however, he told me about our parents… Hmm, it wasn't as sad as I expected it to be when I first heard. I didn't really cry, like I did when Uncle Nikolas…died."
The view of the sphere dropped downwards to the ground for a moment, and she stopped talking. After her pause, she turned it to a young man grooming a chocobo by the cliff's edge.
"And last of all…there's Yun. He was the first one to travel with me, and the first to say he'd be my guardian. He's a great friend, and he showed me the city of Bevelle! I wasn't allowed in when I came the first time with Uncle Nikolas, when he decided then not to get the aeon there since they wouldn't allow me in the city. Yun went through so much trouble just to sneak me in, oh…hmm, I haven't thanked him for it…"
The sphere's view dropped again, but faded out this time, and the recording ended there.
"Hmm, wow. So you've known about this?" Nell asked Juma.
"Not necessarily. The story's been around, but we haven't found actual records of it since…only within the decade."
"An Al Bhed High Summoner…hah, wait 'til the church gets a load of this," Milo laughed.
"But wait. That's just it. Why is it that they wouldn't have a shred of evidence of this summoner, of the Calm she brought? Regardless of her background, a High Summoner is a High Summoner. There has to have been something recorded about it. After all, she has obviously been to some of the temples in order to receive aeons. And in the sphere we found, she's surrounded by Crusaders—all Yevonites," Nell protested.
"Cover up? Wouldn't be the only time they've done so…" Milo suggested, rolling his eyes. "I suppose it does explain something. I mean there's such a huge gap of years between Lord Ohalland's Calm and Lady Yocun's compared to the rest."
"Hmm," she thought. "Juma, would you mind if we kept this sphere for a while?"
"Fine with me. Just come right back here when you want to return it."
"Thanks! Well, I think we should look further into this, don't you think, Milo?"
"Hah! Hell yeah."
The two explorers said goodbye, and departed on their search for clues to the story of a possible forgotten Calm.
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Again, this is only the intro, so nothing significant to the plot has really happened. It's just about how it came to be that the summoner was discovered. If you've played the sequel (not a great game, though) then think of the explorers as sphere hunters! 'Cause that's sort of what I intended them to be. So yeah, just go on to the next chapter where the story will really begin, and review this one if you feel like it. : )