Disclaimer – I do not own anything!

Hi everybody! So I'm finally on summer vacation and here goes my second attempt at writing and hopefully finishing this time! I'm trying to re-edit Of Blitz Stars & Praetors because reading it now makes me cringe (even if it was only written a year ago). Hopefully this story turns out well! Thanks for reading!

Summary – Being the maester's daughter had always brought about several high expectations towards herself from the people of Bevelle. Arranged to marry, Yuna only reluctantly obliges for the sake of her father and the will of her deceased mother. Yuna, however, is immediately sent to Zanarkand after receiving a drastic call. There, she will finally awaken from her dreary state and find, not only the true meaning of freedom and love, but herself.

Awake

I / The Yunalesca

"Love is something that has been passed on from generation to generation, from language to language, and—most importantly—person to person.

Love, however, comes in different forms. You can love your mother, your father, your friend, Spira, and even your own significant other. However, the love we share for these are all different.

According to our Al Bhed predecessors from long, long ago, the term ykyba is the most pure, most special love. This love is the unconditional love you share for another; a love so strong and powerful that all faults and flaws are meaningless to you from that significant person and vice versa.

It is a type of love almost every one of us long to seek. We live our lives yearning to be loved unconditionally and to love unconditionally.

Ykyba, however, is a love that is the hardest to find. How this relates to Lady Yunalesca and Lord Zaon, however, is—

Oh! I'm so sorry for rambling on, I haven't noticed that it has already been five minutes since class was to end!" Professor Maechan then scrambles to put all of his papers and notes into his briefcase, "Please ensure to read chapters fifteen and sixteen tonight. Your final will be cumulative, however, a majority of the material will be based off of chapters fifteen and sixteen!"

He nods his head and sends an optimistic smile to everybody in the lecture hall. Some students were impatient and anxious to leave class in order for them to catch their next one, or completely lost in a trance, staring blankly at Professor Maechan and most likely anticipating the upcoming summer break.

"Good luck on your finals, everybody!" He announces as they all rush from their seats and file out of the lecture hall through the aisles.

Once the herd of students edging to get out of the classroom had dispersed, I made my way down the aisle, towards the front table where Professor Maechan was situated. He was organizing all the papers and manila folders strewn out along the table and placing them into his beat up, brown leather briefcase.

He looked up from the table once I approached him.

"Hi, Professor Maechan," I greet him with a friendly smile on my face, "I was wondering if you, perhaps, received my essay via email? I was having problems regarding my internet connection and service last night and am not sure whether you received it or not."

Professor Maechan nods his head with an amused smile on his face, "Without a doubt, I've received it—three times, actually."

"Oh." I manage to say.

I felt my face burn up in embarrassment as I gave him a sheepish smile.

"Anywho," Professor Maechan replies and chuckles at the current expression on my face, "I've already read your essay and it was spectacularly well-written. It was so well-written that I even had to show it off to a few of my colleagues this morning."

"Why, thank you, Professor Maechan," I felt myself fluster up again and awkwardly shuffled around.

"No, no, no, you do not need to thank me for your wondrous talent," he sent me a reassuring smile, "it would only make sense for a man as brilliant as your father to have a daughter equally as brilliant follow in his footsteps."

"It truly is an honor being the daughter of my father."

I couldn't even count the number of times I've said that in my life.

"Of course," he said and turned his head to look at the clock on the brick wall adjacent to us, "Well, I've got to go before the next class in this room starts. Good luck on finals week, Miss Yuna. And, also, I wish you luck on your upcoming marriage to Praetor Baralai. You have no idea how wonderful it is for an old man like myself to see such a beautiful union between two prominent children of Yevon."

I felt my heart drop once the word "marriage" came out from his lips. However, I refused to let it show externally and continued to nod and smile on.

"Thank you very much, Professor Maechan," I answer, hoping that the smile on my face was not dropping from my further realization of what's to come, "I appreciate your kind words towards my future marriage."

He bashfully shakes his head with a smile on his face as he closes his briefcase shut and picks it up from the table between us, "Goodbye, Miss Yuna. I will see you next week for the final exam."

"Goodbye, Professor Maechan," I said and gave him a small wave and smile as he turned on his heel to walk towards the door behind him.

I then head out the double doors of the lecture hall and make my way towards my car. My next class was cancelled, leaving me with a whole day left of studying and basking in my last few months of freedom—of not being married.

My heart dropped again as the remembrance of it intervened my thoughts. I had always pushed it aside and let it linger and figured that I would be okay with it once the time has come, yet, here I am still dwelling on it.

Before Baralai, I've never had a boyfriend. I've never experienced the whole dating phase throughout the entirety of my high school career because everybody knew that I was basically entitled to Baralai since our families were so close and we were usually always together. They all knew we'd fall in love with each other sooner or later and marry and I'd be his wife while he ruled Spira as maester. Ever since I was 15, my father and Baralai's parents had predestined my 20th birthday as the day I marry Baralai. My mother had wanted me to marry him since the day I learned how to walk.

I had no problem with Baralai, he was a nice guy and—as arrogant as it sounds—I knew he at least felt some sort of affection towards me. We've been exclusively "seeing each other" since I entered college but I've never regarded him as my actual boyfriend. There was nothing wrong with him, I found him quite attractive and he's intelligent, too. But, it's the fact that I'm to marry him against my own will that completely makes the situation uncomfortable for me.

"Yuna!" a familiar voice calls behind me, causing me to turn around.

"Hey, Lenne." I greet her with a small smile as I watch her briskly walk over to me, her long, chocolate brown hair whipping against the warm wind.

Why can't I be in a relationship like Lenne? I think to myself, feeling the emotions of unhappiness and slightly even envy boil within me.

Lenne had been dating her boyfriend, Shuyin, ever since high school. They were and are still so in love together that it sometimes even sickens me a little bit.

"So, how's the wedding coming along?" She excitedly asks once she reached me.

"Great. Baralai's mother, Belgemine, is taking the reigns, so I basically have no say in a lot of the things," I answer, "except for the dress."

"Have you gone dress shopping yet? I want to be there when you go!"

I give her a half-hearted smile and shrug my shoulders, "I haven't gone yet. But I'm planning on going at the end of August since Baralai's mother repeatedly told me that the best wedding dresses are made at Lulu's and her supposed 'best-of-the-best' wedding dresses are seasonal and only sold at the end of the summer."

"Wouldn't that be a little too late, though?" Lenne asks quizzically, "I mean, your wedding's on your birthday, right? In September?"

I simply shrug my shoulders again, "I don't really mind. I just let Baralai's mother handle all of it."

Lenne's excited expression on her face then falls into a more confused and questioning one. I met her gaze and found her scanning my face for a bit before speaking , "Are you happy, Yuna?"

"Yes, I—"

"No, I mean, do you even love Baralai?" She asks me, a tinge of worry on her voice, "I mean, I figured you were marrying him out of love. But. . .I don't know. It's just that you. . .you should be excited for all of this, and you're not."

Nobody other than my father and Baralai's parents knew that our marriage was arranged. Not even Lenne, the only person I truly confided in.

I let out a sigh and gave her a reluctant smile, "He's a nice guy, I just am not in love with him."

She then is silent for a moment but keeps her chocolate brown eyes trained on me, "Then how—"

"It's fine, Lenne. There could've been a lot more worse situations." I interrupted her reassuringly, receiving a weak smile from her.

Lenne has been my best friend for as long as I've lived. Her mother and father were close to my mother and father because they were all apart of Bevelle's little, elite social network together, and Lenne and I met because of that.

There was also Lucil, Dona, and Shelinda, whom I was best friends with as well, and I also met them from within my mother and father's social groups. But, I usually didn't confide in them since they tended to be pretentious or overbearing with their own opinions when it came to specific, sensitive subjects.

For example, when Lenne lost her virginity to Shuyin in high school the night after Senior Prom and confided in Shelinda, Shelinda went nearly berserk. She started to even lecture Lenne with all the teachings of Yevon and how premarital sex is going against almost half of them. Dona, on the other hand, called Lenne something along the lines of being a prude for having waited that long.

Lenne was silent for a couple more minutes before she sent me a comforting smile and said in an upbeat manner, "Well, me, Dona, Shelinda, and Lucil are all going to head on down to The Yunalesca for brunch and we're going to swim on the beach for a bit. You should totally come with."

The Yunalesca is a Bevelian country club based by the beach where only the supposed "elite" population was admitted. There was a rather hefty fee to pay to maintain your membership and if you were to get kicked out of The Yunalesca, you would basically be seen as the bane of Bevelle's existence, or a follower of Yu Yevon.

It wasn't exactly my favorite place to be, however, I'd rather be there than attempting to study at home alone while moping about my upcoming birthday—and marriage.

"Sure." I nod my head and smile, earning an excited clap and grin from Lenne.

"Awesome. Do you want to drive separately or carpool there?"

"I need to go home and get my swimsuit, first. So I guess I'll meet you there?"

"Yeah, I've got to get mine too, anyways," Lenne says before giving me a one armed hug, "see ya there, Yu!"

I watched as Lenne happily walked in the direction of where her car was parked and I started walking towards mine.

Hopefully brunch and a swim can get my mind off of some things, I thought to myself, even just for a little while.

. . . . .

"Oh. My. Yevon," Dona says in a low but harsh whisper, "I so thought that Elma got kicked out of The Yunalesca after she moved back to Luca."

Lenne and I gave each other a knowing look, and with a roll of her eyes, Lenne counters, "Moving away doesn't necessarily resort in being kicked out, D."

As much as Lenne and I loved Dona as a friend, we both knew that her judgmental attitude can be a bit too extreme sometimes.

Shelinda and Lucil completely disregarded Lenne's rebuttal and continued to look on at Elma with equal looks of disapproval on their faces.

Elma is a nice girl, I've talked to her on a few occasions. We went to Lady Yocun's together for high school and she was salutatorian while I was valedictorian. We sat next to each other the entire graduation ceremony and I comforted her when she started to get nervous for her upcoming salutatorian speech.

"Thanks Yuna, you really helped me through that nerve wrecking moment," she hugged me once the commencement ceremony had ended and all of the student's families had rushed from their seats to find their newly graduated relative, "I seriously would've thrown up on stage if it weren't for you."

I, honestly, had no idea what was so lousy about Elma.

But they've always acted like this, regardless. Elma was just another one of their new victims.

"Oh, hey, Yuna, there's Baralai," Shelinda gently nudged me with her shoulder and pointed towards Baralai, who was grinning at me by the country club's patio doors.

Instead of having to talk to him in front of them, I stood up from my chair and walked towards him, meeting him halfway.

"Hey, Beautiful," he greets me and gives me a kiss on the cheek, "Isaaru said he saw you here and I thought I'd come by and say hi."

"Hey." I give him a small smile.

I could almost feel the entire country club's eyes on the two of us. The room had turned nearly quiet as elderly and teenaged women all turned to their acquaintances to share their newfound gossip regarding me and Baralai.

"Are you planning on swimming on the beach?" He addresses as he observed what I was wearing.

I was wearing my favorite white and pink bikini with a cover up on top and a pair of flip flops on my feet.

"Yes, it's significantly hot today," I said, "and it'd be nice to have one good day of relaxation before finals week."

"Oh yeah, I forgot about that," he said and held my left hand in his. He then started to play with my fingers, and once his eyes landed on the diamond ring wrapped around my ring finger, his grin widened, "that must be harsh, knowing how hard the classes you're taking are and all."

"Yep." I tersely reply.

He's always been easy to talk to, but it was usually me that just never really spoke. I was always awkward and tense around him.

"So, I made plans for us to—"

"Hey, Baralai!" Isaaru called from across the room.

Isaaru then motioned to Baralai with his hand to come over, a look of urgency on his face.

"I'll be right back." Baralai gave me a peck on the lips before turning around and heading over to Isaaru.

The pressure in my chest started to harden as the feelings of guilt reemerged. I felt like I could hardly breathe—suffocating, almost.

I took one longing look at the crystal blue ocean behind the glass patio door and without a second thought, made my way to it.

I removed my cover up and threw it onto the sand beside me before fully submerging myself into the cool water.

I've never really been a good swimmer, but I was willing to do anything to distract myself. I was in a trance, almost, as if all forms of sensible thinking had just vanished.

Swimming around for a few minutes, I decided to look back at the country club and noticed that it was further away than I had originally suspected.

Before I could even manage to paddle back to shore, a current brought me further away from where I initially was. Struggling, I continued to paddle as hard as I could, but another current came crashing down on top of me.

It continued on like that, another one would come down and bring me further away from the shore. It was like each current came crashing down harder and harder to the point where I hardly even came up to the surface anymore.

When I felt like I've given up hope, a hand pulled my own up from the water and before I knew it, I was being held by a pair of calloused hands and a deep, but boyish, voice was speaking to me, "Are you okay?"

His warm breath fanned across my face, sending a small shiver down my spine and making the tiny hairs on the back of my neck rise.

My eyes were burning from the salt water and I could hardly open them if I tried. I just nodded my head in response and soon found my arms wrapped around his neck and my torso against his toned back.

He swam the both of us to shore and once I felt the warmth of the soft sand beneath me, I gently rubbed my eyes—careful to not get any sand in them—and blinked twice before fully opening them.

There, hovering above my body, was a guy who looked to be about my age. He had on a friendly smile, showing off his perfectly white, aligned teeth with a few of his blonde tendrils sticking to his sun kissed, attractive face.

But the one thing I couldn't forget the most about him were his eyes that I, at first, mistook to be the sky.

Hi, again, guys! So I hope you guys really like this story so far. Sorry for making the intro super long and boring, but, hopefully I can make it a little bit more interesting by the next chapter.

Translations:

Ykyba – agape (uh-gah-pay) not (uh-gayp)

Agape is Greek for unconditional love, by the way.

Thanks for reading!

- igmv