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It didn't take us long to hurry away from the Farplane and start back down the rooted tunnel towards Guadosalam proper.
"Wha… what was that now?" Wakka asked, finally the first to break the tense silence. "That really Lord Jyscal?"
"Wait, I know!" Tidus called out, a bit too excited. "He wasn't sent, so he became a fiend, right! A-ha!"
"I would think that he was sent once," Lulu corrected Tidus, "but he stayed on Spira. Something, a powerful emotion could have bound him to this world. Such things happen."
"That's against the rules, isn't it?" I asked with a small shake of my head.
"It means he died an unclean death," Auron said quietly from behind me. I looked nervously over my shoulder at him. Unclean?
We stayed close to Yuna as we emerged from the entrance to the Farplane, and all of us silenced. While everyone had seen the same thing we had, we didn't want to be the people loudly wondering what had gone wrong in Maester Jyscal's death. It was a problem, sure, but a problem that only really concerned the Guado and Yevon, and neither of those were my problem. I didn't want to draw any more attention to myself than necessary.
"I will go… meet with Maester Seymour," Yuna said to us as we reached the manor. I supposed that meant she didn't want our company. I put my hands behind my head in a sleepy stretch as she turned and headed for the door.
"Yuna," Auron stopped her, "Jyscal is the Guado's problem, not yours." Yuna had obviously heard him, but she made no acknowledgement and proceeded into the manor without us. As she closed the door behind her, our tiny grouping of guardians dispersed. Auron headed back away from the door, but I decided that we'd probably talked enough for one day. I didn't want to get into another weird argument, like that last one. The Ronso named Kimhari and Wakka went to the other side of Seymour's door and I decided not to follow: one of them I barely knew, and the other was an active hater of everyone I grew up with. My remaining options left Lulu or Tidus; since there was still a conversation to be had about someone having a crush on my cousin, I decided Tidus would be a perfect victim.
"Wait up, I'll go with ya!" I called after him as he started up the ramp towards the Farplane. He was quiet as I followed him up, and I wondered if maybe it wasn't the best idea to tease him just now. "Yunie's not getting married, is she?"
"Seems that way," he apathetically said as he stared down at Maester Seymour's door from the high vantage point. I smiled and elbowed him in the side.
"It's your big chance, huh?" I encouraged him. He just forced more apathy and shrugged it off.
"I don't care," he grumbled.
"That's no thing to say," I shook my head, turning to follow his gaze and look down at the door Yuna had left through. "I think she should get married and stop being a summoner."
"You serious?" Tidus asked, seeming genuinely surprised.
"Yeah," I confirmed.
"Why?"
It was a hard question, one that I didn't want to put words to. "Because it's tough, you know? In the end, she has to fight Sin."
"Yea, but she…" Tidus hesitated. "She would never marry someone who wanted her to quit." I let out a short sigh.
"I guess you're right… too bad," I replied, shaking my head sadly. With that, I stepped away from Tidus and headed down the ramp towards the shops of Guadosalam. It was hard talking about Yunie fighting Sin… it was like talking about it made it seem more real that we'd eventually lose her, or like it would somehow happen sooner; as if not talking about it made it less likely to happen. I sat down on the railing by the shops, overlooking the entrance we'd taken into Guadosalam from the Moonflow. I took my apple back out and finished it off, savoring the sweet juices while they lasted. When I was finished, I turned back around to see Tidus stepping out of a shop behind me. "Find anything good?"
"No… I'm kind of just looking around. Yuna's been in there a long time," he said. I shrugged.
"Well, it's an important conversation," I replied. He was quiet; I could tell he was disappointed or angry or otherwise upset over this whole situation. "Say, you ever think about gettin' married?"
"Me?" he asked, as if it were so incredibly preposterous a question that I could not have been asking him. "No, never."
"I think about it a lot," I honestly nodded.
"Aren't you a little young?" he gestured. I raised my eyebrows at him, knowing he couldn't be but a year or two older than me.
"Some people marry really young in Spira, you know," I said.
"You mean people our age get married?" he said in his most flabbergasted voice.
"Yeah. Fiends are around, and there's always Sin, right? One of them might get you, you know? Lots of people marry the first person they fall in love with, just like that!" I told him.
"Really?" he asked, introspective.
"I'll probably be the same way," I smiled to myself as I looked back out over the railing. Then again… I considered if I'd already missed my chance to be the same way. After all, I'd said 'I love you' to Gippal too many times to count, and I really thought I meant it. I did mean it. But we didn't last, and we certainly weren't getting married. Maybe I wasn't really the hopeless romantic I thought I was… or maybe I should have married him when I still had the chance.
I didn't want to think about Gippal anymore. Wondering if I had run out of chances or not, or if I was too late only led me to think more about him and where he could be, which was a rabbit hole I did not want to venture down. I turned back over my shoulder towards Tidus, who seemed immersed in his own thoughts.
"You an only child?" I asked him, hopefully not changing the subject too abruptly.
"Yeah," he responded, still far away in his own thoughts.
"I got an older brother myself," I smiled, thinking about Brother and his horrible tattoos.
"Huh," he off-handedly grunted back at me.
"I wish I had some younger brothers and sisters, though…" I thought aloud.
"So ask your parents," he off-handedly said. I might have scoffed; as if what I wanted mattered to Cid anyways. But I instead decided to be kinder and genuine.
"Mom died… a machina went on a rampage," I told him.
"I'm sorry," he awkwardly said, like he didn't know how to react. I decided to push past it- there was no point in making him feel bad, after all.
"When I get married, I'm gonna have lots of kids!" I said. "That way, they'll all have brothers and sisters!" I turned back towards Tidus and saw him looking at me with raised eyebrows and a surprised grin on his face. "What?"
"You're really thinking about your future, aren't you?" Tidus asked, seeming genuinely amazed. "That's great."
"It's pretty normal, I think," I shrugged as I stood up. But I felt a little silly the way that Tidus had said that; maybe I was being a little forward. I decided I may as well drop the subject. "Hey, maybe Yuna's back!" I said as I ran past him down the ramp towards Maester Seymour's place. It wasn't the smoothest transition I'd ever managed, but it served the purposes of ending the conversation. As I reached the bottom of the ramp, I saw the door to Seymour's place still closed; Yuna must have still been inside speaking with him. Awkwardly, I finally also noticed Auron standing in the darkened corner just in front of me. He was staring at me, and I suddenly felt incredibly uncomfortable. Vulnerable, even. I shifted my weight to my right hip, and scratched my chin with a tiny giggle.
"No Yunie yet?" I asked. He didn't answer. I dropped my hand and stood up straight. Fine. If he wasn't going to answer me, I didn't need to entertain a conversation all by myself. I turned towards the way we'd entered Guadosalam and was about to walk off, but he finally spoke.
"You are wise to consider your future," he said. I turned back to face him and shifted my gaze.
"You… were listening?" I self-consciously asked. He didn't answer, but the truth was clear: of course he had. I giggled a little to myself.
"Tidus is young yet, too young to plan out his future," he said. I scratched my chin.
"Really? I could have sworn we were the same age," I thought.
"Age is not always best measured in years," he replied. I smiled and shook my head, understanding a bit better. I also could feel myself blushing a little; I guess Auron thought I was kind of mature. At least more mature than Tidus- I guess that wasn't saying too much, was it?
"Have you… ever thought about marrying?" I asked him, clasping my hands together behind my back. I could almost see a small smile form behind his collar.
"I was once meant to," he replied. I stepped closer, kind of amazed he'd decided to answer.
"Who was she?" I asked.
"She was the daughter of a priest. At the time, I was a warrior monk. It was a proposition that would have given me the career I desired," he said with a twist of bitterness and sarcasm.
"A monk?" I asked with half a laugh. "Geez. I can hardly picture that. So what happened?"
"I said no," he frankly answered.
"Why?"
"She was nothing to me. I didn't know her, nor did I care to."
"Yeesh," I responded. "At least you didn't make the mistake of going through with it."
"Many would say the mistake was saying no," he said. "The rejection came at a cost. My career in the clergy was ended." I scratched my chin.
"Oh," I said sadly. "I'm sorry."
"Don't be," he confidently said. "It was the beginning of a better life. A higher purpose." I smiled back at him with a nod.
"Well, good," I said, not wanting to pick apart his positive attitude. "Do you think you'll ever marry? Like, after Yunie's pilgrimage? If you meet some lucky gal?" I didn't know why I was badgering him so much, but I was genuinely curious- and enjoying talking to him. But at my question, his smile faded fast and he grew aloof again.
"I cannot," he said.
"Sure you can," I said, putting my hands behind my head. "Meeting people isn't so hard." But he didn't answer. I lowered my arms, realizing that maybe there was a more serious reason behind why he didn't want to marry again. "Or… did you already meet someone?" I wondered if he maybe did love someone, but maybe she'd died or gotten married to someone else. At his age, I imagined he must have been in love with someone before, right? He smiled back at me a little, that dry and tired smile of his.
"I've met enough people for a lifetime," he said. I scratched my chin, not knowing what he meant.
"Hey!" I heard Tidus yell. I turned around to see him running up the hill from the exit to the town. "I was just talking to that Shelinda chick, the one from the Mi'ihen Highroad? She was just running back from the Thunder Valley, at least I think that's what she called it, and she was asking about Yuna and…"
"Out wit' it!" Wakka interrupted him.
"She said that Seymour isn't here!" he said.
"What?" Lulu asked.
"But she's been in there forever," I said with a shake of my head. "If he's not here, what's she been doing all this time?"
"It matters not," Auron said. "We retrieve Yuna and we leave." We all looked up at the front door, but no one seemed to move. Wakka rubbed the back of his neck.
"Kinda… feels bad… goin' into a Maester's home when the Maester ain't around, ya?" Wakka meekly asked. I shrugged and rolled my eyes. I walked through the group and straight into the house. It wasn't like he'd locked the door or anything; he must not have cared if anyone came or went. I heard Yuna's voice in the main atrium and reached the bottom of the left staircase to see her looking at a portrait of Maester Jyscal.
"Yuna, let's go!" I called up to her. She jumped a little at the sound of my voice but paused to bow to the dead Maester's portrait. On her way towards me, she looked across the staircases to peek a look at Seymour's painting. She then walked at my side as we headed towards the door, but she didn't say anything. "You okay?" I asked. She forced a quick smile.
"Yes," she quickly spat out. I didn't really believe her, but it was obvious she didn't want to talk about it so I let it drop. We rejoined the group standing in front of the manor, clustered around the stoop talking about Seymour and where he'd gone.
"Where'd Seymour get off to so fast, anyway?" Wakka asked with a shake of his head.
"They say Seymour went to Macarena Temple," Tidus answered.
"Macalania Temple," Wakka corrected him.
"Aye!" Tidus joked. It was a really funny joke, but we were talking seriously. No encouraging funny business during conversations like these.
"What I don't get is… why would the Lord Maester head off without a peep to anyone?" Wakka asked the group.
"Maybe he wasn't expecting Yuna's answer so soon?" I thought. I felt like Yuna shouldn't have an answer so soon… I mean, she'd barely talked it over with anyone. She'd hardly had enough time to think any of it through.
"Ah, that's probably it," Wakka agreed with me. Yuna let out a sigh that was probably louder than she'd intended it to be.
"Yuna, what is it?" Auron asked her.
"Oh, nothing," she answered him, obviously returning from having been lost in her own thoughts.
"Hmm… you're a poor liar," he said to her. I darted a glance at him. He just thought he had everyone figured out, huh?
"It's true, it's nothing! Come on, let's go," she said, leading the way down the slope towards the exit to the town. She turned right down a dark tunnel and the group began to follow, but I suddenly froze in my steps. I don't know how it didn't occur to me until that moment, but we weren't leaving the same way we'd entered. We were going the other way.
We were going through the Thunder Plains.