The problem with Yuna was that she wasn't really a people-person. A people-person can still smile and go 'oh, well,' to someone who doesn't agree with them. Yuna had happily made a vendetta against half of Spira, which was satisfied when she became famous and got nearly everything she wanted. Yuna was merely a 'people-who-like-me-person.'
Paine was a 'people-I-can-ignore-person.' She was good at ignoring people. If, for some reason, she couldn't ignore them, she hit them on the head until they were unconscious and ignored them. It was when they regained consciousness that gave her problems.
Rikku was a people person. Someone could shout ethnic slurs at her and she'd merely bounce and yell some back while smiling.
No one had ever told any of them this. The ones who didn't like Yuna either kept well away or were already dead. The ones who didn't like Paine, she ignored. The ones who didn't like Rikku, she merely said 'Okay,' to and nothing was ever accomplished.
On the airship, two people ignored the problem, two more considered it, while one actually thought about it until she fell asleep dreaming about it.
…………..
'People-or-not-people-persons' were not what was occupying Seymour's mind. In fact, what was occupying Seymour's mind was fleeing from what else was occupying his mind.
No one gave him instructions on how to rule or be Maester, but he'd gotten the hang of it. But there was some fine print in being the son of the ruler of Guadosalam no one had ever pointed out to him.
As easy as 'What he does no know will not hurt him,' seems, in the end, someone has slept with at least one relative, someone's eyes are missing and the survivors—if there are any—are standing amongst rubble and possibly corpses with only 'oops' to say about it.
And then there seems to be the universal habit of people trodding on the fabric of reality until it breaks and then everyone stands in a circle and points to the left when asked whose fault it was.
Seymour had at one point in time noticed that general consensus said it was his fault, no matter what happened, but at the moment he didn't care.
There were a great many flaws in the farplane. The first was that everyone went to the same place. Someone infamous for murdering people because he felt like it would have a great time, while everyone else wouldn't.
The second flaw was that you didn't die. You were already dead. Said infamous murderer would have an even better time.
Then there was who was chosen to keep the farplane nice and tidy and happy and well… landscapy.
At first, he disliked his lot in life. Later, he disliked his lot in the afterlife. Then he pretty much settled on any form of existing he did sucked majorly.
Especially now that the general form of the farplane had gone from ugly to downright unfriendly. The farplane was the only known place in Spira where the landscape actually got up and bit you and chased you if you ran away. And it wasn't very known.
The only comfort Seymour got—the only time he got was pseudo-awakening on the farplane after something pseudo-killed him, only for him to be pseudo-alive- was that wherever he was, there was no one else to give them a piece of their mind about what his had done to the place.
……………
The saying 'the road to hell is paved with good intentions' is slightly off. It implies one can choose to walk down the road, and even turn around and go the other way at the smell of brimstone.
In fact, the gate holding back hell is knocked down by good intentions. All hell breaks loose right on top of you and you can't tell demons to go away or that they have the wrong address. And there's no warning.
Hell is nature's latest natural disasters. The world had no problems with it before people tried to play ethics with house rules. Like tidal waves, freak storms, and volcanoes, there was always warning that it would happen. People knew society was due for a backlash, or that the mountain was about to spew molten rock everywhere. The problem was the times of the disaster were only 'very soon' or 'just now' with nothing in between. You could get out of the way, or sit back and wait for something to hit you in the head and complain about it later. Either way, it still did damage.
Common sense is not integrated in any part of real education. Some people learn it, but to most the fact that playing around with the world's metaphysics is not a good idea is never grasped. Plus, there's always some charismatic idiot or two who says 'sweep it under the rug, the cops never look there for disembodied heads,' and somehow it seems so convenient that everyone agrees.
Right now there is a huge corpse barely even constituting as 'under' the most poorly built rug ever made and the walls of hell haven't just opened, but fallen off their hinges. All metaphorically, of course.
What was really happening was a freak thunderstorm with no rain. The impressive part was not that it was eight times bigger than anything in recorded history, but the fact that it was coming out of the farplane. The lighting was the equivalent to normal lightning as a large gun being fired is to throwing a poorly made paper airplane.
Suddenly common sense kicked in and the residents fled. No one really paid attention to minor details, such as fire, which was blue, the fact that the portal to the farplane had grown black, but was getting bigger while the edges were not merely growing fuzzy, but unraveling like cheap fake silk.
Sometimes nature is gradual, making glaciers, eroding cliffs, and making beaches. Sometimes it waits and waits as you poison it and then it vomits all over you. The same works with magic, and the Guado had been feeding the farplane two generations of bad cheese.
…………..
A siren—or whatever the beeping flashing thing was—was going off. It didn't seem to be in favor of stopping.
"You get up," Paine said.
"Don' wanna get up," Rikku muttered.
"I'm not getting up, I already got up yesterday," Yuna said.
Disasters have an inconvenient way of being inconvenient. This is why there aren't that many heroes. There's a difference between fighting a fire, and fighting a fire when you're amazingly flammable, several miles from any water source, and a monster is trying to eat you.
At the moment it was four-something in the morning. It was a time when numbers shouldn't be significant.
"Make it stop," Paine muttered.
"You make it stop," Yuna said.
"I'm not getting up," Paine said.
"ZZZ," Rikku said.
…………………
Soon annoyance proved a more powerful force than anything, and everyone was on the bridge, in their pajamas, and yawning. Buddy kept falling asleep and banging his head on the console. After a while he gave up and woke up later with button-prints all over his face.
"What's going on?" Yuna asked, then yawned.
"We've got reports that Guadosalam just exploded," Shinra said.
"Okay," Rikku said, as Paine shoved her off her shoulder. At three in the morning, you'll believe nearly anything. This was an hour later and the time when you'd believe anything at all.
"What do the people in Guadosalam say?" Paine asked.
"Nothing, the comsphere exploded," Shinra said.
"Looks like an open and shut case," Paine said.
There was a long pause. Brother's head hit the console for the last time. Buddy put a lot of effort into along blink. Rikku fell asleep on her feet and Paine shook her awake.
Cognition finally finished in Yuna's brain. "Should it have exploded?"
"I don't think so…" Shinra said.
"Why'd it have to explode now?" Rikku asked.
"Don't you mean 'Why'd it explode in the first place?'" Paine asked.
"I dunno," Rikku said.
"Any survivors?" Yuna asked.
"I don't know," Shinra answered. "The place still seems to be on fire."
"The whole place?" Yuna asked.
"Whole thing," Buddy said.
"That means we can't do anything at the moment," Paine said, and lazily wandered off to bed.
"I guess she's right," Yuna said. "We'll have to wait until the flames die down." She left for her bed as well.
Rikku passed out in the middle of the floor.
"Yes, but… Why did it explode?" Buddy asked to no one in general.
Brother's face hit the windshield wiper button.