Hey hey hey! My birdie is wolf-whistling at me XDDDD (he's such a charmer ^^)
Sooo, thanks to the usual people, and another long chapter!(I think we've broken another record...)
Just to clear some things up: it might seem like Aey is getting TOO emotional and sensitive or whatever, but (and I've said this to one person already), you know how things are usually magnified in your mind? Like, it seems worse than it really is? That's kind of what's happening. Aey's angry because she can't accept the fact that Auron's an Unsent, because he hid it from her, and because SHE'S so angry. She's telling herself that HE has no right to be 'so distant,' but she really thinks that he has every right and she has none.
That clear anything up? No? Sorry. I tried ;)
If you've ever read A Separate Peace (it's actually a good book! By John Knowles), then think about Gene and Finny. Gene ended up KILLING Phineas because of what he THOUGHT. Well...technically killing him.
ANYWAY, Disclaimer: Another long/confuzzling chapter. TAKE IT LIKE A MAN! ^^
x.X.x
The acolyte turned and rushed out of the room, and Yuna turned to her guardians.
"Where do we go now?" she asked.
"Yeah, we can't just go to Sin. We're not ready, are we?" Tidus answered, nodding.
"Then we must get ready," Auron said in a matter-of-fact voice.
"So…the Cavern of the Stolen Fayth first, then?" the summoner asked tentatively. He nodded.
"If that is what you wish." She nodded, and then led the way back to the airship, saying to Cid, "Can you take us to the Calm Lands?"
"Sure can!" Cid answered with a grin. "That's what I'm here for, isn't it?"
"Thanks, pops!" Rikku said with a thumbs-up, and Yuna nodded and bowed.
"Thank you." Cid looked as thought he wanted to contradict her formal behavior, but he let it go.
"Alrighty, then," he said, turning to Brother. "Dyga ic du dra Calm Lands!" Brother nodded.
"Hykih!" he answered, nodding, and the airship lifted and sped off. It flew smoothly, with little noise from the engines, and we were free to walk around. I sat down beside Lulu near the computer, and tried to keep myself from sighing.
"Anything wrong?" the mage asked. We both knew that there was something wrong, but she was obviously leaving it up to me to say. I shrugged.
"Just a little…confused," I answered, leaning back.
"About?" she prodded.
"Auron." I kept my voice low so that it would be--for the most part--incoherent to the others. Lulu was silent, raising her eyebrows to show that she was listening. "I'm angry at him because he's been keeping so much from me, including one thing in particular, but I'm angry at myself because I don't think I have a right to be angry. But I don't know what to do, because he expects me to just accept it and not really care when I keep thinking about who Seymour is and who Mika is, and I hate that I can't not draw parallels between him and them, when I know that he's not like them at all, but I just can't trust him. So I think he's angry at me, which makes me angry at him all over again, because why should I trust him if he can't trust me enough to tell me?" Finally I ran out of steam, realized that my voice had risen a little, lowered it, and sighed. Lulu didn't ask anything else, just let me rant until I was done, and then shrugged.
"Well, depending on what he kept from you," she said carefully. "You do have a right to be angry, but he probably had his reasons for keeping it." She stopped as I started to seethe again.
"But now he won't look at me at all, and he certainly won't talk to me, and I don't understand why. If it's because of the fact that I know now, then it's not like him to avoid it, but I'm frustrated because I can't even say it without pausing or faltering a bit…" I trailed off, careful now to keep my voice at a low volume, and Lulu thought for a moment.
"I can't say I'm not curious," she began. "But you don't have to tell me. Sir Auron probably wouldn't like that very much…" The mage hesitated. "My advice would be to just let things cool down and then try again, this time with a bit more conviction about accepting whatever he hid from you, so maybe you can try and smooth things over." I shrugged, not answering for a moment.
"I probably will. Thanks for letting me rant, Lu."
"Any time. As long as you do the same for me when the time comes." She smiled, and I suddenly laughed.
"I can't imagine you ranting, but I will." The black mage nodded, standing as the Fahrenheit touched down on the dirt of the Calm Lands and following Yuna and the others out into the field. The summoner nodded to Cid, who gave a mock-salute back, and then started forward.
We didn't rent chocobos this time, as the cavern was so close, but Rikku made Yuna promise that we would. The summoner turned toward a small path leading down into the valley below the bridges where we had fought the Guado, and stopped at a murky cave with violet mist rising from it. Rikku ran in to look around, and then came back. Beside me, Lulu sighed.
"Where are we?" the Al Bhed girl asked.
"The fayth is inside," she answered wearily. "As are the fiends." Suddenly, Wakka gasped quietly.
"Hey…" he began, stepping forward. "This where…?" He trailed off, and Lulu nodded. I began to ask her if she would explain, but Tidus beat me to it.
"Where what?" he asked, cocking his head to one side.
"The summoner I guarded on my first pilgrimage…" she began, and I knew. Lulu had told me that her first summoner's pilgrimage ended in the Calm Lands, and her second quit there as well. "…Died here." Everything was silent, and Lulu straightened up. "Yuna, let's go. The fayth awaits."
The young summoner nodded, following her guardian into the cavern, and then the mage fell to the back. I walked beside her, through the twists and turns of the dank cave, and no one spoke until we had arrived at a fork.
"What's a fayth doing in a place like this?" Rikku asked, scraping mold off the stone wall with one finger before sticking her tongue out and wiping it off on her pants.
"They say it was stolen from a temple long ago," Lulu answered softly.
"Huh?" Tidus asked, raising his eyebrows in surprise.
"With no fayth, summoners cannot train," Auron explained impassively. "Without training, they cannot call the Final Aeon. Without the Final Aeon, they cannot defeat Sin." He paused as Tidus nodded. "That is why."
"'Cause then the summoner won't die!" Rikku finished, and Wakka nodded.
"That must have been what the thief was thinking."
No one spoke until Tidus broke the silence.
"I kinda agree with him," he said quietly, and Rikku sighed and nodded. The Al Bhed girl started forward with everyone else trailing behind, and we fought our way through the cavern, arriving at a hollowed-out area in the back of the cave. Pyreflies covered it like mist, and Wakka sighed.
"Peh!" he muttered. "Another Guado fiend?"
"No." Kimahri's low voice echoed around the room. "An Unsent." The pyreflies cleared, and a shimmering image of a woman appeared. Lulu stepped forward, looking down.
"It is…" she began, glancing up at the summoner. "It's you, is it not, Lady Ginnem?" The mage sighed. "Forgive me. I was too young." She glanced back at Yuna, who raised her staff to begin sending the Lady. Ginnem raised her arm, swiftly cutting Yuna's sending, and turned. "There is no human left in you now, is there?" Lulu asked softly. Ginnem lowered her arm and turned back to the mage. "Very well, then." Lulu straightened up, staring directly at her old summoner. "Allow me to perform my last duty to you. My last as your guardian."
Ginnem dipped her head, turned, and raised her arms to summon the strangest aeon I had ever seen. It resembled a man, with a flowing red cape draped across its shoulders, but had the face of something else. Beside it sat a dog, lips pulled back in a snarl.
Immediately, Yuna summoned Bahamut, and the dragon flew down and roared. Yojimbo was still, and his dog leapt forward to sink its teeth into the other aeon. Bahamut didn't even flinch, instead flaring its wings and knocking the dog back, whimpering. He created a ball of energy and cast it at Yojimbo, growling, and as soon as the magic had struck he flew forward to slam into the aeon while it was stunned.
Again the dog lunged, and I was grateful to Yuna for having the foresight to gradually regain Bahamut's energy through both the Calm Lands and the Cavern. Now he had the strength for and overdrive, and Mega Flare was all it took to send Yojimbo back.
Now Ginnem had not the energy to stop Yuna's sending as her aeon returned, and she dissolved into pyreflies. Lulu looked at the place where her old summoner had stood and sighed.
"Strange," she murmured, and I looked over. "I thought it would be sadder, somehow. Maybe I've gotten used to farewells." Wakka put a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"You're stronger now," he said with a nod.
"I hope you're right," Lulu answered, smiling slightly and turning to Yuna. "Yuna, the fayth is inside. Go do what you came to do." The summoner nodded and bowed, hurrying into the next room.
An hour passed, and finally Yuna came out--breathless and tired but accompanied by Yojimbo--and Lulu led the way out of the Cavern.
Apparently, we had lost track of time, because it had long been dark outside. As soon as we emerged into the light of the moon, Rikku's mouth opened in a huge yawn.
"I'm tired, Yunie," she said, her voice distorted through it.
"Yeah, same here," Tidus answered, stretching.
"Okay." Yuna looked around. "I guess we should camp anyway." She led the way to a cluster of trees hidden in a niche to the north, where we had stayed the night the first time we had ventured into the Calm Lands. Rikku promptly unrolled her blankets, got a fire started, and went to sleep. Tidus followed soon after, but I stood and slipped into the trees. Auron had disappeared as soon as we had made camp, and I soon found him standing near the edge of the Calm Lands.
"Yes?" he asked as I approached.
"Are you going to look at me now?" I couldn't keep the edge out of my voice, and the guardian turned with a raised eyebrows.
"I have been looking at you."
"Not really."
"Are you not still angry at me?"
"I am."
"Then why are you here?" He glanced down at me over his glasses, and I shrugged, looking past him.
"Because I don't want to be angry at you."
"And yet you still don't trust me."
"I do--" I began, but he interrupted, his voice growing slightly louder to drown out mine.
"I didn't mean that kind of trust." I stopped speaking, and when I did his voice lowered. "You know what I mean, because you know that you don't trust me that way."
"Only because I don't know if you're telling the truth anymore--"
"What reason do I have not to tell the truth?"
"Whatever reason you had to lie to Shelinda, and not tell me about how you were…dead!" I inwardly swore because I still stumbled over the word.
"I lied to Shelinda because she did not have to know about Mika's being there already, and if she had we would have had to explain. Things might have gotten complicated." His voice was cold, having noticed my slight pause. "And I kept the fact that I'm dead from you because you would not have believed me. Even now you don't accept it."
"Because I need time to think--" I began hotly, but he interrupted again.
"I've given you time, Aey. I've given you time to think about it, time to accept it, but I've only seen you getting angrier." Auron wasn't yelling, but the harshness in his tone was enough to make it seem like he was. "All you do is fume, instead of trying to think through it. Because you don't do that, you insist on coming back to me, as if thinking that I'll take it back. I know you well enough." I was only made even more outraged at this because it was true. I had no excuses, no feeble lies to myself. I wanted him to suddenly say, "Oh, that? I was lying about being dead. Sorry, just a little joke." But now I knew he wouldn't.
"So why did you tell me at all?" I asked, fighting to match the composure in his tone.
"Because I had hoped that you would know me well enough to take it without uncertainty. Apparently I was wrong." He looked back down at me, shifting.
"Only because--" I began to argue, began to say what I had been mindlessly repeating: I need time, because I was too confused to say anything else.
"Stop." The word silenced me immediately, and I couldn't keep myself from looking up. "Stop lying to yourself. If you can't accept it, then you shouldn't. I won't expect you to. If you can't trust me, I won't expect you to. Don't try."
I did nothing but look up at him, too stung to do anything but that, and he turned away. I stood there for a moment longer, and then spun and walked back to the campsite. I had heard the implications behind Auron's words well enough.
I slid quietly back into the campsite, careful not to wake anyone up, and then sat down cross-legged by the fire, staring into it for Yevon-knows-how-long. Finally, I stood and ripped a piece of paper from the notebook in my bag, uncapping a pen and writing one word on it.
Sorry.
I put it next to the fire, knowing that he knew my handwriting from watching me write a reply to Graav's letter so long ago. Just in case he didn't remember, though, I took the throwing knife that he had given me and stabbed it into the ground to hold the paper down. He would know.
I shouldered my bag, Auron's words still ringing in my ears, and walked out into the Calm Lands. The guardian wouldn't see me, blocked by the trees, and I took my time in walking over to where the airship was anchored, thinking. I was confused, angry at him, frustrated with myself, and I couldn't think of anything else to do. I doubted I would be any more help to Yuna anyway.
I reached the Fahrenheit, knocking once on the door, and after a moment it slid open. Cid was sitting in a chair, having woken up at my knock, and stood.
"You look like you're up to no good," he observed affably, and I shrugged and smiled sadly.
"You could put it that way."
Rikku's father nodded, already knowing why I was here.
"Ah, well. I'll bet in a couple of days you'll be back," he said with a shrug, starting the engine of the airship. "Everyone needs some cool-down-time every now and then."
"I hope you're right, but I don't know," I answered, sighing. Cid chuckled, beginning to steer the ship. Apparently, Brother was sleeping.
"You know, my little girl ran away when she was eleven. Swore she'd never be back, but in three days she turned up again, right on the doorstep." Cid shook his head good-naturedly.
"Rikku?" I asked, distracted. "I can't imagine her being that angry." He burst out laughing.
"That little ball of energy could blow up Home if she wanted to. You're lucky you've never heard her throw a tantrum." I smiled.
"Reminds me of my older brother." Cid nodded.
"Where did you want to go, anyway?" he asked, looking at me for a moment. I thought for a couple of seconds.
"Home, I suppose. Luca. Not like I can really go anywhere else." The Al Bhed dipped his head.
"Alrighty. Luca, here we come." He pushed a couple of buttons, absently taking a card out of his pocket and tossing it to me. "You just call when you're ready to come back," Cid said with a wink. "If you own a machina that can do that, anyway." I nodded, sighing.
"Luca's a bit more lenient about that kind of thing."
"Well, good."
We flew on in silence for a couple more minutes, and I inwardly reflected how fast the airship flew. Clouds were nothing but white blurs, and the ground below was a mixture of different, barely-discernable colors.
Finally, Cid slowed as we neared my home, and he turned to me, putting the Fahrenheit on autopilot. "What do you want me to tell the others?" he asked, raising his eyebrows. I shrugged, fiddling with the card he had given me.
"Whatever you want. Don't make them lose sleep or anything," I answered, exhaling and leaning back. He nodded, smiling slightly, and then put a hand on my shoulder.
"You'll be back. Don't you worry. I know you--and so does that Auron." I looked up at him in surprise, and Cid's face suddenly broke into a grin as he laughed. "I ain't that old yet," he said, stepping away with a roll of his eyes. "And I ain't blind, either." I nodded, smiling.
"Thanks, Cid."
"Any time. Don't be too long, alright? You wouldn't want to miss the fight with Sin!" I nodded, and he let the airship down just outside the city. "See you soon."
I turned and watched the ship disappear into the sky, wondering why Cid was so sure I was going to come back. I certainly wasn't.
I sighed, taking my gloves off and stuffing them into my bag, my fingers clenching around the hilt of his dagger. I withdrew my hand and pulled the zipper shut, wiping my eyes with the back of my hand. In a way, I wanted to go back, but I would have only been angrier. Auron had said that he wondered why I was even trying to make things right: so did I.
Sighing, I walked the streets of Luca, knowing that few would be up at this hour, and let my feet carry me where they would. I was hardly surprised to end up at the sphere pool, my home for so many years. I shook my head and set my bag down, taking out my blitzball but leaving my padded gloves. I wasn't sure I wanted to put those on yet, somehow thinking that that would seal my decision to leave. I felt as though I was in a completely different world, where stories of Sin and even fiends were no more than bedtime stories.
I threw it into the pool, diving in after the ball, and began to re-tune my skill. I soon found that I had gotten a little rusty after not playing for so long, and used both my anger and my confusion to send the blitzball flying as it slowly came back to me. I wondered if Graav was here, wondered if he had come back to Luca after Yunalesca and Seymour were defeated. I hoped he had, despite how we had been bitter rivals our whole lives.
I sent the blitzball spinning across the pool and then gave chase, trying to reach it as it sped through the water. Somewhere in my mind I had always loved my brother, despite my envy of him since day one. We were decent to each other in the sphere pool, but somehow found that impossible outside of it.
I spun around to block the blitzball, taking it and launching it at one of the metal poles holding up the pool. It bounced back and I missed, growling as I swam after it. I sighed as the ball popped out of the water, climbing down and retrieving it.
I played until I couldn't swim any more, and wondered if anyone had noticed my absence yet. Auron probably had, but I wondered if he cared. Lulu might have, and I felt a pang of guilt for leaving her. Cid had probably told them something along the lines of, "Oh, she'll be back," but I didn't know. I might feel different later, but right now I was home.
I walked woodenly out of the sphere pool, and put my blitzball back into my shoulder bag, sitting down on the bleachers and looking up. I remembered how I'd met Auron, how he had watched me play blitzball for the first time. He had told me once that I had more passion for the game than Jecht and Tidus combined.
My thoughts switched to Lulu, and I thought back to how I had tried to get her to play blitzball. On an impulse, I concentrated on my shoe and imagined it drenched in water, but my black magic was as useless as ever. I laughed, though without a trace of humor.
Finally I stood, shouldering my pack and wandering through Luca again, arriving at the apartment Graav and I grudgingly shared. We had more or less split it in two, each taking our separate bedrooms and almost killing each other on who got the larger one. He had won that argument, but I had stolen his blitzball the next day as revenge and then claimed for weeks that I had no idea where it was.
I smiled sadly as I remembered, taking the key out of the side pocket of my bag and unlocking the door. The blitzball was still cleverly hidden in the wall at the back of my closet. I wondered if he would ever get it back.
I walked into the apartment, turning the lamp on beside the door. I didn't want too much light, and I thought it was because I didn't want to see everything yet. I almost laughed upon seeing the half-built wall that cut right through the already-tiny living room--our method of anger-management. Graav had started it one day, soon after an unusually large fight between us, and claimed fiercely that he was officially splitting the apartment. I had screamed that it was fine, because I never wanted to see his revolting face again, and so "the Wall" was started. He never finished it, but every time we fought hard enough, we would both usually add something to it. It was made out of everything: cardboard, flat pieces of wood precariously balanced against each other, picture frames, and anything else. It didn't split the apartment, and instead only protruded a couple of feet into the middle of the room, but it was enough to get a point across.
Anyone who had ever come into our apartment either loved it or proclaimed it to be a violation of space. Everyone on the team, though, had made the Wall a part of our lives. When Graav and I fought near the others--in the sphere pool or otherwise--one of them would mutter something like, "Bet the Wall's going to be four feet longer when they get home." Someone else would usually reply, "Are you kidding? I'll say eight feet at the least." And the gambling would go on.
I walked forward and trailed my fingers over everything that made up the Wall, almost laughing as I remembered. There was the chair that I had found and demolished, then added to it. There was my old stuffed teddy bear that Graav had torn apart and thrown into one of the small holes in the Wall. The empty picture frame that I had ripped the photo out of and added soon after.
"Aey?" I whipped around, my hand impulsively going to tighten my gloves in preparation to fight. I shook myself, absently thinking what a change being a guardian had brought upon me, and looked at Graav. He was standing wide-eyed in the doorway of his room, loose t-shirt and sweatpants on. "What…?"
"I couldn't stay…with the others," I said with a halfhearted shrug, looking down. "So I came back here."
"But…what…?" My brother still looked stunned, and I avoided the question.
"Why are you here?" I asked, not unkindly. "I thought you were a Crusader." He shrugged as well.
"Maester Kinoc died. Heart attack or something," Graav explained, still looking confused. "So they made all us 'rookies' leave. I think they were going to make me leave anyway, since Maester Seymour saw how I was reluctant to fight you." He looked up, now angry. "Actually, scratch that. I wasn't going to fight you. I would have died before I did." I stepped back. I had seen him angrier before, but this was different. Graav stood there, fuming for a moment, before calming down and looking back at me. Neither of us spoke for a few seconds. "Your hair's wet," he observed finally, raising his eyebrows. I shrugged, suddenly wanting to cry in happiness. This was what I loved about Graav, however much I sometimes wanted to kill him. He didn't pry if I wanted to be vague, and instead made me explain something else.
"Blitzball," I answered, backing up and sitting down on my spot on the couch. My brother took his armchair, raising an eyebrow again.
"At four o'clock in the morning?" he asked skeptically. I shrugged.
"I wanted to cool down."
I saw that he knew that there was something else, something that I wasn't telling him, but Graav shrugged.
"I can definitely understand that. Good to have you back." I nodded.
"Good to be back." My voice was abruptly quiet, and I looked over at the Wall, feeling even more tears spring to my eyes--though it was for more reasons than my own sorrow. I shed tears because I knew that Auron would have to be sent at one point or another, because I had left without saying goodbye to him, because I didn't know if I would return or not. Cid seemed to think so, but I was home now, and I didn't know if I would leave again. Graav did nothing, only watched me, and I thought about the times we had fought and the times we hadn't.
I could have gone through my memories forever: the time he went out to travel with the team as he usually did, and when he had returned his girfriend of almost seven years had been dead. He had lashed out at me, because I had been with her when the ship had slammed into a reef and been crushed. We had been going to Kilika, and only later did I learn that Graav had been going to buy an engagement ring. His girlfriend had been one of the few people who had not learned how to swim, who had been too afraid of the water to abandon the sinking ship, and it had dragged her down with it. Young and ignorant, I had screamed at him that I had tried to help her, but that he was too stupid to see that.
I sighed, pulling my knees up to my chest, and Graav smiled sadly.
"Not going to fight Sin?" he asked lightly, breaking the silence because neither of us could stand it for a minute longer. I shrugged, sighing.
"Not like they'll need me, anyway," I answered, messing with a loose string on my shirt. My brother laughed once.
"Of course they will. I bet at least one person'll miss you in that whole group," he joked. I smiled despite myself, but it faded as I answered.
"Probably only one."
"Yeah? Who?"
"Her name's Lulu. Black mage." I described her for him, and he nodded.
"I've seen her." Graav paused. "Well, Lady Yuna will miss you, won't she? You're her guardian!"
"Not anymore," I sighed, and he rolled his eyes.
"You're such a killjoy. She'll still miss you, won't she?" Graav asked, and I shrugged and nodded. "What about the Al Bhed girl you told me about in your letter?"
"Rikku," I answered. "Probably." Graav nodded, and then got up and walked into his room, coming out a moment later with a piece of folded paper. I recognized the letter I had sent back to him, and remembered how--in response to Doram's prodding and pleading--I had described every guardian and my relationship with each. He scanned it, and I found myself rolling my eyes teasingly as he asked, "Okay, how about Wakka? Sounds like you two were friends."
"He probably won't miss me for long."
"Fine. What about Tidus?"
"Same with him."
"Kimahri might secretly miss you." I snorted.
"I doubt it. He didn't talk to me much."
"Okay…" Graav was clearly going through every guardian, and I sighed as I remembered who I had written about last. "What about Auron? Legendary guardian of High Summoner Braska?" I didn't answer for a moment.
"Somehow I doubt he'll miss me."
x.X.x
*LE GASP*
I promised plot-changes, didn't I?
So this might have been a little "too much," but if you have any suggestions I'd love to hear them ;)
Just because I have an OCD urge to explain: Aey is PROBABLY thinking lotsa other stuff, like how she doesn't want to--for instance--face Auron again. Or how she thinks she'd be too distracted or something to really help with the pilgrimage. That's why she left.
I, personally, can find too many mistakes in this chapter (in the writing/story) than I care to admit, so if you have ideas on how to fix any that you notice, it'd be nice. Sorry about the long paragraphs...
My bird is officially crazy. He was making the WEIRDEST sounds, so I was like, "What are ya doing, you little freak?" (affectionately, of course), so Connor goes, "Reeehhhhhhh.....Grrrr....."
I cracked up.
So these chapters are getting really long (I'm trying to rein them in) because I just start writing and don't stop until thirteen pages and 8,000 words later. Sorry 'bout that.
Connor says hi. In his weird chattery voice. Right now he's repeating a very strange popping noise over and over again.