So, here's chapter 11. Maybe it's a little bit sentimental, but see it for yourself ;)
By the way, I want to thank all of you for the reviews as well as reading the story so far.
Until the next chapter then
After passing Oaka's Yuna stopped and turned to Rikku and Paine. „We'd like to take a walk and go the long way through the woods. I hope you don't mind."
Paine was a bit worried about Yuna since she had seemed to be a bit tired after the fight. But just as she wanted to ask Yuna, Rikku said quickly like a shot: "Of course we don't mind. We go back to the airship and wait for you there. Just enjoy the beauty of Macalania woods as long as it's still there."
"Right." Yuna replied with a sad undertone in her voice. It was hard for her to believe that this wood and all its magic would be gone forever soon. She couldn't imagine what would be at this place once the woods had vanished. While Rikku and Paine took the short way, Yuna and Tidus went the other way. Hand in hand they strolled along the path and enjoyed the remaining beauty of this enchanted forest. The emptiness of the wood set Tidus thinking and also a bit wistful.
"It's incredible how things can change - and what's more, how fast they can change." He said.
"This thought has been on my mind for a while." Yuna replied. "Time goes by, and things change with its passage. People, places, things - everything changes. Sometimes it takes only a short time, and sometimes it takes ages. But nothing stays the same. And every now and then things change without us noticing it. But then, when we look back, we notice that things have changed a lot.
"Yeah, that's right." He said with a low voice. Spira had changed a lot - of course - but not only Spira. He had changed as well, during Yunas Pilgramage - and possibly even while he was in the farplane.
Then they reached the end of the way. Due to the still thick forest canopy and the time of day it was already getting dark in the forest. Yuna looked around, but the forest seemed to be still empty and abandoned. Not even beings that would get active at twilight seemed to be here any longer. It was just an empty they went for the wood's edge as Tidus turned around suddenly.
"What's wrong?" Yuna asked him.
"Somehow I can't escape the feeling that someone or something is watching us." Yuna looked around once more, but the forest seemend to be as empty as two minutes a squirrel-like being jumped down from one of the trees onto Yunas shoulders. Thereupon she jumped with fright but as fast as it had appeared it jumped on the ground and ran away.
"You're ok?" Tidus asked as he couldn't help laughing at this funny sight.
"Yeah, but it gave me a pretty scare." She replied with a laugh as she put her right hand in front of her heart. Suddenly she stopped, then started to feel for something on her neck before she said: "My necklace. It's missing." She looked at the ground and searched it with her eyes, but the necklace wasn't there.
Tidus looked in the direction the squirrel-like being had run and asked: "Do you think the squirrel has stolen it?"
"I don't know, but that's possible. I think I still had the necklace when we were strolling along the path."
"It went in that direction!" he said and showed in the direction of Bevelle and the calm lands. So they followed the squirrel and as they reached the crossroad they saw it again – with Yunas necklace. But as it saw them as well, it ran away along the way towards the spring. They followed and looked for it, but at the spring they couldn't see it anymore. Then Yunas eyes fell to the ground in front of the spring. "There it is!" she said. The necklace was lying on the ground, so she went there to pick it up while Tidus was still looking around and lagged behind therefore. As Yuna straightened up her eyes fell from the necklace to the spring. What she saw then cut her to the quick. The waterlevel had fallen remarkably compared to the last time Yuna was there. And the tree in the middle seemed to be sick as well. Sadly she let her arms fall and said: "It's fading – just like the rest oft he woods."
At that Tidus gave up looking for the squirrel and turned to her again. As he saw her standing there he looked at the spring as well and drew closer to her. When he was close beside her, he put his arm around her. Then the two of them stared at the spring for a few seconds.
"I don't want this wood to fade away." Yuna said softly, "It's full of memories – bad memories, sad memories, and one of my fondest memories. Sometimes I'd like to blow out the bad ones…but that only calls them back to my mind even more. And although this may sound a bit strange, yet I don't want to miss a single one of them. After all the past events have made me the person I am now. However, I feared that with every piece of this wood fading, a part of me would fade away as well." Then she glanced at the necklace in her hand before she looked at the tree in the middle of the spring once more. "But now I'm not afraid anymore – " She faced him, whereupon he returned the look, " - not as long as you're with me."
Then she turned around so that she could embrace him - and rested her head on his chest as she closed her eyes.
"Yuna." He said in a very low voice as he put his other arm around her. Then he placed his chin on her head and closed his eyes as well. So they remained for a while and savoured the moment.
As Tidus opened his eyes again the spring attracted his attention once more. "Yuna!" he said softly as he taped her on the shoulder. To that Yuna raised her head and looked at him before she followed his line of vision. For a second or two, the tree in the middle shone brightely. Immediately Yuna let go of Tidus and turned around to view it better. Right after that something fell down from the tree crown. It fell into the water and floated towards them. As it reached the bank, Tidus went for it and picked it up.
„A sphere!", he commented and handed it to Yuna.
After having a look at it she said: „It looks like a memory-sphere. Could it be …" she looked at the spring and then back to Tidus "… there's still some magic left here in this place." she said fascinated. But it wasn't just an empty memory-sphere - it was their memory-sphere.
"This place amazes me time and time again!" she remarked.
Since it was darkening more and more they decided to go back to the airship. On the way they saw a luminous something that looked like a big pireflie or something similar. It was floating in the air, not chancing its position. As they got nearer to it they saw that it was as big as a pyreflie and that it was glowing red – and burning. It looked and floated like a pyreflie, but muchmore it seemed to be a little fireball. Then it floated right in front of Tidus, but against his expectations it didn't radiate heat.
"What's that? Has something like that been her ever before?" he asked Yuna.
"I don't think so. I've never seen something like that before as well."
As it was still floating in front of his eyes he tried to touch it. But before he could do so, it vanished and re-appeared a few meteres away from them. Curiously they approached it and looked at it.
"A floating fireball that doesn't radiate heat." Tidus said as he kept a wary eye on it.
"Somehow it looks like kind of a pyreflie." Yuna said astonished. "But a strange one. I've never seen a pyreflie that looked like it was burning – not in this way."
Suddenly it disappeared again. At that she said: "No, that's definetly no ordinary pyreflie."
For a while they looked around for it, but it was nowhere to be seen. So they decided to go back to the airship and tell the others about that.
"Hey!" Rikku greeted the two of them as they entered the bridge. The others were gathered around the big sphere. "You come just in time. We've waited for you two for hours, but finally we couldn't wait any longer." "That's ok." Yuna answered. "Actually we wanted to come back earlier, but we were held up."
"Eh?" Rikku stopped short.
"Is there any news about the sphere?" Yuna continued.
"We put the sphere into the hole of the sphere-crystal." Shinra replied. "And like the last time, it opened like a flower and released a smaller sphere. Here!" he opened his hand and showed it to Yuna and Tidus. It was light-blue, of course. "We were just about to put it into the hole of the big thing."
To that Yuna and Tidus nodded and Shinra proceeded. The big thing exerted a pull on the small sphere, thus it was pulled into the hollow next to the indigo-blue sphere. Then the small, light-blue sphere and the big thing glowed light-blue, before the color of the big thing changed into a green. After that it was black again.
"So we look for a green sphere next." Paine commented.
"Yeah." Yuna nodded, "And I'm sure we'll find it in Besaid."
Her hypothesis seemed to prove true since Buddy got a weak signal from the area around Besaid.
"So, let's go to Besaid." Paine said.
"Right" Yuna agreed, "But there's something I wanna tell you first." After everyone had turned to her she told them about the strange pyreflie in Macalania woods. And because everyone wanted to see it with their own eyes, Yuna and Tidus took them to the spot where they had seen it. They hoped it would be back – but it wasn't. Meanwhile it was late in the evening and they decided to go back to the airship and stay the night there.
But Yuna could sleep only hardly. She couldn't stop thinking about the strange pyreflie and so she put on her boots to go and get some fresh air.
"Yuna?" she turned around. It was Tidus. "What are you doing?" he said softly, still being sleepy.
"I cannot sleep, so I thought I getting some fresh air might be helpful. I'm sorry to have woken you." She answered in a low voice.
"In the middle of the night? Wait for me." He stood up and went towards her. He knew she wouldn't just go outside for a few minutes - no, she was about to go back into the forest and look for the pyreflie-like thing.
After they had left the cabin and went towards the woods she said to him:"This thing gives me no peace - there have been happening too many strange things in the past few weeks to be unconcerned about it." She looked at the night sky - it was full of sparkling stars. "First it occured to me, that it might be just a normal pyreflie that has taken the shape of a fireball. After all, pyreflies are known for taking the shape of someone or something. But I don't know if they can even take the shape of an element – a pure element that's got no living part." Then she stopped and looked at the forest edge they were heading to "Or maybe it's a kind of pyreflie that's never seen before – or something total different." she said softening, "Spira is still full of mysteries."
Meanwhile they had reached the forest. It hadn't changed much over the night - it seemed to be as abandoned as before. But suddenly there appeared a reddish glow behind a tree.
"Yuna, there!" Tidus said softly as he pointed towards the tree.
„It's really there!" she said in amazement. Then she went towards the tree and the thing as she looked at it again. It stayed on this spot and altered its position only vertically, stopping at Yunas eye height. Still it looked like a floating fireball, producing sparks that soared into the air. Then Yuna reached out her hands and placed them to both sides of it, as if she wanted to clutch it. As Tidus had said previously, it didn't radiate heat. But this time it didn't disappear, instead it started to float around. Thereby it didn't leave a trace of light like the pyreflies did, but it left a trace of little flames that disappeared after a few seconds.
"Amazing!" Yuna said as she followed it with her eyes. It flew over her head and around Tidus, before it encircled both of them. Then it stopped and paused on this spot. After a few seconds it started again and floated back and forth along the way. The two of them followed it with their eyes. Suddenly a male voice sounded from the pyreflie-like thing: "Some people told me that there have been happening strange things for a few days."
"Huh?" Yuna startled and completely stunned she turned to Tidus: "Was that real or was that just my imagination?"
He shook his head in disbelief. „No, I've heard it too."
Meanwhile the thing floated past them another time „They blame you for that."
"What- what does that mean?" Yuna asked the thing. But it didn't react in any way, it just kept on floating. Then it encircled them once more before it floated away.
"Hey, wait!" Yuna called out to it, but still it didn't show any reaction. It floated around some trees and then returned a little bit just to vanish in front of their eyes.
