7. GHOSTS
Her hair shone a golden blonde and her bright green eyes kept me rooted place.
She had taken no notice of me, instead talking animatedly to Yuna and Tidus. She was sopping wet from head to toe and I had no idea where she had come from.
There was a lull in conversation and then she clasped Yuna's hands and said, "I want to be Yuna's guardian." They both smiled and my Summoner turned to look at me. I remained silent, waiting for her query.
"Is that alright?" Yuna asked me, smiling gently and hopefully. Yet again I found myself wishing she knew just what happened to guardians upon reaching Zanarkand. In any case, I shrugged gently.
"You are the Summoner, Yuna. It rests on your shoulders to make the choice."
"I would still value your opinion," she replied, ushering the girl toward me.
I took in a quiet breath as she came close, hands clasped before her and chin downward. I forced myself to stay rooted in place, even as the urge to step away came over me when she came near. The sight of her made me feel...different. Off balance.
She stood before me, eyes resting on something to her side, a slight smile on her lips. Quietly, almost impercetibly, she whispered, "E ryja y calnad."
Her use of the foreign language left me stunned. I reached out abruptly and lifted her chin with two gloved fingers. Her somewhat-nervous gaze turned immediately to mine and her lips parted slightly as she saw my face directly. I felt it must have been due to the scars, but a moment later her smile grew and her eyes took on a new light. Admiration, or something like it; I could barely read her. It made me uncomfortable.
Finding myself, I swallowed deeply and wrenched my eye away from her Al Bhed ones. I let my hand drop and nodded. "If it is what you wish to do."
"It is," she responded firmly, turning back to face the rest of them. I watched her walk away and felt my cheeks burning.
Something. I couldn't tell what, but something was off. I needed rest. I started forward, gesturing for the group to follow. They continued their conversations while falling in step behind me.
"Rikku," I heard from behind, and turned to glance over my shoulder to the green eyed girl. She smiled again at me. "My name is Rikku." I saw no need to reply as Yuna explained my identity to her a moment later and I continued on down the dirt road.
It seemed so funny. I would kill for a million of those smiles, and I had no idea why.
We arrived at Guadosalam in the evening as I had predicted. The fiends had grown more violent as we neared which resulted in a full sprint toward the closed gates of Guadosalam. The Moonflow foliage was known for its paticularly violent brand of fiends, including a mutation created from the souls of angry Yevon soldiers known as a chimera. These we thankfully ran into few of, but the final one left us with not a few scrapes and cuts on our already-tired bodies.
The Guado slammed the gates shut behind us, again activating the barrier that kept the outside world from their tranquil, peaceful city. We were left panting in a tiny hall carved entirely from an ancient, giant tree and were soon approached by an elderly Guado who benevolently offered his arm to Yuna for support. She hesitated, then took it.
"You are Lady Yuna's guardians?" he asked the rest of us. A few nodded. I myself tried my best to blend into the shadows of the wood, remain inconspicuous. I was not safe amongst these Guado, the keepers of souls and the only creatures among Spira who could tell the unsent simply by the feeling and the scent they seemed to give off.
The Guado's eyes were only on me for a second before he waved for us to follow, already beginning his obviously-prepared speech about the wonders of Guadosalam and the Farplane. We walked for some time through the massive oak before it opened up and revealed the interior of the city to us, the crytalline boughs of the forest reaching overhead to form a shell from the outside world.
I turned my gaze to the left, to the road that led to the gates of the Farplane. A shiver ran down my spine and I looked away.
For some reason, she was only a few steps ahead of me looking toward the Farplane as well. Her eyes flickered toward my place for a second before she continued to listen seemingly intently to the Guado's explanation of Guado architecture and their bond with the forest.
Yuna, for her part, looked enthralled with his words and paused him only once to inquire his name. "Tromell Guado," he announced proudly, bowing to us. "I am Maester Seymour's main aide."
"Where is the Maester?" Yuna asked. Tromell gestured to a structure in the distance, a sprawling palace of a building that intertwined with the forest itself. The home of the Maesters past, Seymours own father Jyscal included.
"We will need some time to prepare for our meeting with the Maester," Yuna explained to Tromell gently, removing her arm from his. "Would you show us to the inn and we can find our way to the Maester's home at the agreed upon time?"
Tromell seemed fine with this plan and we were left to our own devices in the inn. Yuna called for each of her guardians to congregate in her room and we did as much. I chose yet again to sit in the corner, half covered in shadow. I would not relax until we emerged from the city the next day.
"I wanted to apologize," Yuna began, seated on her bed and facing each of us. "I know that this detour has cost us some time and I know having Rikku here was not planned."
"You have no reason to be sorry, Yuna," Lulu told her quietly. "We've lost perhaps hours from the Pilgrimage- we'll gain back the lost time quickly."
"All the same. We are a team. I am not your leader, and I should have consulted you all for both decisions." She sighed and smiled. "But here we are and now you all have a chance for rest."
"Not while you speak with him," I growled, nodding in the direction of the Maester's home. "He has a presence none too benign."
"I agree," Tidus spoke up immediately, his face grim.
"Whether he seems to have a hidden agenda or not, it is just a meal we are obligated to share with him, nothing more. And as my guardians I know you will be wary of our surroundings at all times and I trust you to keep any situations that arise in check."
Each of us nodded and she gestured toward the door. "I need time to clean myself up before we meet with the Maester. Could I ask each of you to try to do the same?" Again we nodded and took our leave from Yuna's room, departing to our own quarters. Mine lay closest to the exit and I shut the door firmly behind myself in frustration. The meeting was a bad idea- and our Summoner knew it.
That night, before dinnner, they strode up the path toward the Farplane.
I followed at the tail of the group, each step heavy on the dirt ground, my eyes anywhere but forward. Rapidly I was ticking through a mental list of ways to escape before they forced me to near the Farplane.
And there was a terrible, heavy, comforting feeling washing over me the closer I drew. It was like a blanket around my shoulders, a mother's loving grasp, a stream of sun-warmed water you played in as a child. I could feel true rest waiting there beyond the gates, and it frightened me.
Finally, we stopped before it, a large sphere of shining blue and the sound of pyreflies laughter echoing from it. Yuna and the boy stepped through slowly, shimmering for a moment before they disappeared from sight. Wakka and Lulu both followed, Kimahri entering behind as a guardian of sorts. The Guado that had led us now departed, leaving myself and the Al Bhed on the steps.
We stood in uncomfortable silence for a moment and then I glanced at her out of the corner of my eye and asked, "Aren't you going in?"
She smiled wistfully and seated herself on the wide railing that guarded from falling into the large pit of black beneath us. "Memories are nice, but that's all they are." Her eyes turned to me and I glanced away in discomfort. "Seeing my mother's ghost won't bring her back."
"Your mother?" I hated small talk. Why was I indulging in it? I sat down on the stairs and stretched my legs out, tensing each muscle and allowing it to relax fully and completely.
"Sekka." She produced an apple from her sidepouch and shined it gently against her shirt. "The double-k runs with the women in my family. Rikku, Sekka, Ikkei..."
Ikkei. She was related to her?
Something occured to me.
"You're Ikkei's niece, aren't you?" I asked, finally looking to her. "And Yuna's cousin."
"You're a bright one," she said, smiling widely and winking at me. Again I looked away in discomfort until she offered me another fresh, shining apple. Hesitating, I took it and bit down into the soft flesh, relishing the taste of the juices flowing down my throat. It occured to me that I had refrained from eating much for a few days now, sustaining myself on scraps of bread I had purchased in Luca days prior. I masked my enjoyment of the fruit in my hand by instead looking out over Guadosalam far below us, away from her gaze.
"And why aren't you entering the Farplane, Sir Auron?" she asked. Every word she spoke had a hint of mischief on it, a light teasing you could only hear if you were truly listening to her. It made the edge of my mouth curl in a half-smile, but I forced this away.
"I have no memories to look back on," I lied, though it was in part true. My childhood consisted of training in Bevelle. The only ghost I would care to see was busy with his daughter at this very moment. The other ghost haunted the world I currently inhabited.
"The Al Bhed have a theory," she mumured, leaning back against a spire that jutted out of the railing at every fifth step, some sort of Guado design I didn't care for. I looked at her then and raised an eyebrow, and she raised one straight back. "You knew I was Al Bhed and still didn't shun me, by the way. I appreciate that." A laugh. "Anyway. The Al Bhed have a theory that all these pyreflies are just reacting to your memories." Everything she said she emphasised with some sort of gesture, wide sweeps of her arms.
"All of what you see in the Farplane? Just memories," she continued, "and dwelling in memories too long isn't healthy. Why don't your relatives and loved ones talk to you? They can't. They're memories, and they're dead."
She fell quiet at this and turned away, and for some time we said nothing, listening to the faint humm of the Farplane's walls behind us. I wanted to reach out and touch her shoulder, but instead crossed my arms against myself and lowered my head to rest.
It could have been minutes or hours later, I had no idea, but eventually the rest of the guardians and my Summoner emerged from the Farplane. The Guado had returned as well, no doubt to escort us to the Maester's residence. I stood to go.
There was a gasp and we each turned. All eyes were locked on the Farplane's entrance and a figure draped in indigo struggling to break free of it's edges. Everyone took a step back in surprise, only Yuna drawing close to it and whispering, "Lord...Jyscal?"
As it struggled against its bonds I felt a burning, searing pain in my body and I collapsed to my knees, biting clean through my own lip in an effort to keep from yelling in agony. I shook violently, hearing only screams in my ears and feeling the blood thudding against my temple. I felt the strange sensation of pyreflies leaving my body, like skin peeling away on a knife's edge, and I looked up to ensure none had seen.
I was wrong. One had. She stared in surprised and, dimly, in horror as my legs finally gave out and I lay against the steps, gazing up at her green eyes and willing her not to say a word.
Events ahead of us continued and she gently stepped to the ground, reaching under my arm and lifting me once more to my knees. Her lips grazed my ear and I heard her faintly whisper, "Stand. Stand before they turn and see."
I got to my feet, placing a hand on the bannister to keep myself aloft, and allowed her to support me in a way that seemed as if she casually stood near me. Yuna began her sending of Jyscal and my eyes widened in fear.
Rikku tugged on my sides and led me toward the stairs, and together we left the group behind before the sending could be completed. I panted with each step, weakness taking over me, and struggled in vain to ask her why she was helping.
"Apparently we both have secrets," she told me quietly, her face a mask of determination. "I don't know why you're the way you are, but you're obviously here for a reason, and so am I." She stopped and turned to face me, gripping my biceps tightly. "Don't tell and I won't either."
Despite myself, I smiled. "You'll see in time, Rikku."
"Forget that. We have to get you away from here...the inn, we'll go back to the inn. They'll think we were just bored."
"You aren't disgusted? Afraid?"
Rikku smiled. "What, because you're unsent? I'm...not disgusted or afraid, no. Just confused. But you show no start of becoming a fiend and your skin under my fingers seems real enough to me. As far as I'm concerned, you're still here."
We continued toward the inn and I smiled wryly. "You're...an enigma."
"Among other things, or so I'm told," she mumbled, and that was all that was said as we entered the inn and she left me alone in my room to my own confused, jumbled thoughts.
Hehe, woops!
Sadly this one took so long due to a sudden bout of bronchitis (inflammation of the bronchioles, wut wut). It's been sitting 98 edited and waiting to be released, and I finally got my butt in gear today.
(And to reiterate, though this is a basic novelisation, it's also one that should be considered slightly AU, including happenings and dialogue. ;D)
