Stress
As it turned out, many of the Gaians volunteered to provide some healing to Shelke while Selvin worked. However, afternoon passed into evening, and evening passed into night with no change and no success, causing many to worry. Few Gaians got any rest that night, and as night passed into morning, Selvin was still trying to find a way to keep Shelke safe from the damage being done to her body. The Turks' mourning circle had long since fully broken, and many had managed to eat some sort of supper and breakfast, though worry kept a fair number of them from eating full meals. SOLDIERs, whose bodies demanded more food intake than normal humans, ate full helpings only because they weren't able to refuse.
Karru sat at a table near where Genesis, Kariya, Selvin, and Shelke were—they'd moved to a shelter of a sort Eden had made for them with wood and stone at the edge of the clearing. At the table with her sat Aunt Yuna, Uncle Tidus, and Hana, and Aunt Rikku and Uncle Wakka were both also nearby, Uncle Wakka just standing a couple feet away and Aunt Rikku with Aunt Sanni and a couple other Captains sitting at the next table over with a Record Sphere. Since Aunts Rikku and Sanni were working, that left the others to watch the proceedings.
"All right, Yuna?" Tidus suddenly asked the brown haired woman, and Karru turned to look at them, seeing the apprehensive frown on Yuna's face.
With a mildly upset look, Yuna said, "I'm...worried."
"About?" Tidus asked in faint surprise, and Wakka turned to look at them, too.
"The girl, you mean?" Wakka asked after a moment of silence, when it looked like Yuna wasn't going to answer. "She'll be fine, I think. They're working too hard for her not to be."
"No, not..." Yuna began, then stopped again.
After another pause, Tidus reached over and rested a hand on hers, saying, "You know we can't read your mind, Yuna. You'll have to tell us what's bothering you."
She gave him a mildly annoyed look, but left her hand under his as she looked back at the group. "As much as I feel for their plight, these people are shockingly powerful—and shockingly dangerous. If they were to attack us, I honestly feel we wouldn't be able to stop them. To make matters worse, their 'world sentience' is much more active than ours ever has been, and is forcing changes in the flows of Spira. If even one of those is made in a slightly incorrect way, it could destroy us. But honestly, their combat skill alone, and what they said about how they came to be here, indicates they're just as war-like as we are, maybe more-so."
"...You think they're going to try to slaughter us all or destroy Spira?" Tidus asked with a startled blink.
"They won't!" Karru cut in, glaring hotly at Yuna.
"Karru—" Yuna began in her 'most patient adult' voice.
"No!" the thirteen-year-old snapped. "I'm not saying this as a willful child, I'm saying this as a survivor of this battle, and of the tidal wave. I saw—Aunt Yuna, I helped them save people, the search-and-rescue, watched how they behaved, how they talked with one another and me! I watched them work just as hard to save our jet fighters as their own people, watched them heal my—our—injuries as freely as their own. I've spent a lot more time with them than you have. They aren't our enemies!"
"And yet, the Turks could destroy the world. Even their own leaders know that," Yuna replied to the girl, gaze shadowed.
Wakka tipped his head to the side and said, "Ya, you could say that, but Yuna—that ain't what I saw from 'em either. I think Karru's got the right of this. After all, we all know first-hand that having power doesn't mean it'll be used, an' not having it doesn't mean everyone's safe. Stupid, weak people're more dangerous than smart, strong ones. The really dangerous ones're the ones who're stupid and strong. These guys are smart and strong, and worked hard to save us already."
"Yeah!" Karru quickly agreed.
"And what would stop them from turning their power against us?" Yuna asked the older man in an oddly flat tone. "Especially if we find there's no land for them here?"
A moment later, Rikku was leaning over Yuna, hugging her around the shoulders with her chin resting on top of Yuna's head. "Yuu~nie!" Rikku practically chirped. "It's great that you're all—looking out for everyone and all, but seriously—don't see problems, or make them, where they don't exist."
"I'm not—" Yuna began to protest.
"You are, Yunie, and you know it," Rikku replied with a wide grin as she hugged the other woman more tightly. "Something's wrong here, but it's not with them. We're all feeling the stress, you know? What do we do with them, where do we put them? How will they fit in with us? There are a lot of questions, and we don't have answers." The blond let Yuna go and moved over to sit on the edge of the table beside and facing Yuna. "But you know what really makes me think we don't have to be afraid of them trying to murder us all in our sleep or whatever?"
"What's that?" the brown haired woman asked with a small frown.
"You weren't here when the battle happened or the tidal wave hit," Rikku said in an oddly serious tone for her, causing everyone else at the table to focus intently on her. "I watched their horror, their pain, their hurt, at seeing the Shadowterra downed, at the results of defeating the Sin-level Adamantoise. It was just like ours. They're mostly just like us, and they care. Even about complete strangers. They care." She then grinned as she reached out to muss up Yuna's hair, finishing with, "People who care aren't as likely to try to destroy anything as people who don't, you know?"
Still, Yuna hesitated, using trying to fix her hair as a stalling tactic, her expression absent. She was about to say something when someone tapped her shoulder, and she turned to face the person in surprise, as did the others. What they saw was one of the men who were called 'Turks', one of the rougher-looking ones in the group, one who gave an impression of silent power and of being 'tough-as-nails'. The pattern shaved into the side of his head made Yuna blink, and Karru grinned as she realized he'd heard the whole discussion.
"I don't blame you for thinking we're dangerous—we've been trained to be, and we know it," he told her. She blinked at him again. "People are very good at training themselves to live, to survive, in any situation. I've been at the bottom of the scale, the worst life had to offer, and I honestly thought at one time that I had no reason to care. Most of the Turks, the SOLDIERs—anyone who was under Shinra's control—went through a phase like that."
Her eyes widened in horror, but he looked away, in the direction of Shelke and her carers. "Then things began to happen which were honestly worse than I'd already lived through. We had our eyes brutally opened to the fact that, if we didn't change things, we were all going to die." His gaze moved back to her. "That didn't mean anything as mundane as war. We were destroying our own world by causing one another so much suffering, and we had to stop that massive degree of suffering if we expected to save our world, to have any chance to do so."
Leaning forward a bit, he tipped his head slightly to the side as he went on, "There was a hidden experimental facility. Shelke was one of the few we were able to save from there—all the Turks, all the SOLDIERs—she's one of the ones we could rehabilitate after the torture they suffered there. We had to slaughter the rest because they were either insane or soulless dolls. A thousand people met that fate at our hands." The Spirans' eyes all widened as they paled. "What that did to our psyches was a major reason why we chose a path opposite—what we experienced then. And we still couldn't save Gaia, but at least Minerva was willing to give us another chance."
"Chance for what?" Yuna asked softly.
"To prevent that kind of suffering from happening again. To teach the people to come—our children and grandchildren—another way to live," the Turk answered. His lips quirked in faint amusement. "To effectively make people like the Turks obsolete one day, hopefully before we all died. This is our life, but it doesn't mean we want others to live the way we were forced to live. We're not looking for a war, Yuna, but if you attack us, we'll defend ourselves and our people, just like you would if you were attacked. If neither of us attacks the other, we'll never have a war. There's no war if all everyone's doing is defending themselves, waiting for someone else to make the first move. Let's keep things that way."
"What if we have no land for you?" the 'younger' woman asked.
The Turk shrugged. "Minerva isn't that stupid or that uncaring towards her children. She will provide for us, without encroaching on your lands, because she doesn't believe in that way, either."
"You seem awfully sure of that," Wakka commented.
With a smile, the man said, "I met her and spoke with her. She's like a kind and caring mother, someone who wants all of us to live peacefully, happily, without suffering. She can't stop all kinds of pain, but it's in her nature to provide land and food for us—to provide us with the resources so we can live without having to worry about where our next meal will come from. We're the ones who screwed that up with greed, not her. She's going to provide for us here, too, if her track record is anything to go by. Using it correctly—that's where we need to work out a better way than the one we once lived in."
"...And you are who, besides a Turk?" Yuna asked thoughtfully.
"Ruluf," he replied, then gave her a small nod. "It's wise to know about others around you, especially new arrivals. I'd have truly been worried about you if none of you had any apprehension about us. The fact is, we are strangers, and you need time to get to know us. But your caution was dangerously approaching an unwarranted preemptive strike just now, and that would have truly been devastating for us all. By your world's own history, you've all seen just as much death as we have—and it's time to change that cycle, don't you think? We're not going to take from you anything you can't, or won't, give us. That won't serve any purpose at this point, so let's all just wait and see what happens."
"See?" Karru asked Yuna with a smug look. "They care—they aren't our enemies!"
Ruluf sighed faintly as he shook his head in faint amusement. "Thank you for the vote of confidence, Karru."
"Why do you all know my name?" Karru blinked. "I only met Verdot, Reno, Eden, and Emma from the Turks."
His lips quirked in amusement again, then spread into a fully amused smile. "We Turks like to talk with one another, youngster. Meeting one Turk is pretty much your introduction to us all. That's what investigators do—make sure their co-workers are up-to-date on happenings. We honestly had no idea how long you were going to be in our care, so in the interests of keeping you safe, everyone needed to know to watch out for you if they happened to see you."
Yuna actually chuckled at the words, then sighed and said, "I supposed what's most unsettling is the changes in the energies I'm used to feeling."
"It's strange for us, too," Ruluf told the brown haired woman, lifting one shoulder in a small shrug. "We're solid, but composed purely of Minerva's energy, so I think a lot of us are somewhat overreacting to things we'd usually work on very efficiently because we can also sense the changes in the energies around us. Shelke—what's happening to her now is the extreme end of that scale. And you're right that one wrong move on Minerva's and your entity's parts could be devastating for the world. I would hope, however, that they'd know enough and be cautious enough to not have that problem."
There was a long moment of silence, then Yuna asked, "Your entity and ours, you apparently have some idea of their appearance?"
"We know only that yours seems to be male, and currently has the appearance of a toddler," the Turk told her. "The impression we were given is that he wouldn't normally look like that, but he's running short—very short—on energy right now. Minerva is a grown woman with a middle-aged appearance, her hair blond and her eyes the same green as Selvin over there, and as Aeris."
"Who?" Tidus asked.
"That's me!" a cheerful voice said from behind him—across the table from Yuna and Ruluf—making everyone turn to look at her. She was smiling as she said, "Hello again, Yuna. Thank you for coming to see Tseng earlier."
Yuna inclined her head with a small smile. "I was curious about his state after hearing from the others about his transformation. Had I tried to heal him directly, he'd be in the same state as Shelke, but by sharing energy with Hikari, she had more energy to heal him with. Since I couldn't help Shelke, that was something I could do."
Aeris nodded. "If he wakes even a little sooner, that will be very good. In all honesty, even though everyone's been doing well holding themselves together since the battle, we all need him back—we'll start drifting apart without him to anchor us. Anyway, what were you saying about me?"
"I was just telling them about how Minerva has eyes the same color as yours," Ruluf told her. "I'm guessing your absence has been due to spending time with Tseng, Flower Girl?"
"Yup," she agreed with a grin. "And it would be more accurate to say we have the same color of eyes as Minerva, since she came first. It's a trait of the Cetra. At least, of the ones who are a quarter Cetra or more. Anything less than that is a shot in the dark, as we know from Eden, Genesis, Shelke, and Shalua, and even Kariya. Even though Kariya has green eyes—they aren't Cetra green. Even Genesis' probably weren't before the Mako made them blue. Why were you discussing our eyes?"
"I asked about the appearances of the world entities," Yuna offered that time.
"I don't see what it matters for," Karru put in with a pout.
"A child entity is more likely to have to give way for an older, more powerful one," Yuna sighed, giving her head a small shake.
"If you were dealing with Jenova, that would be something to worry about," Aeris agreed. "Jenova was another Omega—a planetary entity—who arrived on our world about a thousand years before your people did. But, she was insane and tried to destroy everything, and we only just finally severed her completely from our world's system before we ended up here. Minerva isn't like that. She and your entity are legitimately working out how best to arrange the world to keep the best of ours and the best of yours. We aren't getting a lot of that right now, but it looks like the fiends will mostly stop, but they'll be replaced with similar beings we call monsters—the dead will actually move on now—and the Farplane will stay mostly intact, but with the ability to allow people to see loved ones who have passed on. At least, that's what it sounds like so far."
"Why would we still have monsters to fight?" Rikku blinked in surprise. "That sounds like we're being chaffed something awful."
"It would be too boring without monsters, especially if we start making peace between people," Karru grinned in amusement, realizing why the entities would want to keep that. "Are monsters more violent or less?"
"You mean how likely they are to attack?" Aeris asked in mild confusion. When Karru nodded, the older girl said, "I guess when they aren't being pushed by Jenova, they're only a little more likely than any normal animal to attack people, though they are still known to do so. Especially if they wandered out of their natural territory. They weren't inclined to attack larger cities, mostly small towns and travelers, too—by your current world state, there would be very few towns they would want to try attacking."
"That would leave most of our people safe, then, is what you're saying?" Wakka asked curiously.
"Mostly," Aeris agreed. "There weren't monsters who attacked airships on our world, either—even the flying monsters left the airships alone. Some of your 'fiends' will stay, only because they were legitimate creatures, species of this world, not angry dead people taking that form. Though, those ones will more accurately qualify as monsters."
"What of the Farplane letting people see loved ones who have passed on?" Yuna asked thoughtfully. "As it already does that, it sounds as though it isn't changing."
Shaking her head, the younger woman admitted, "I don't have all the details, but it sounds like it's being changed to let you interact with them. It's not a use-all, either, but I couldn't hear the terms from the murmurings I heard. Also, it sounded like the 'Summoners' were supposed to be a 'race' similar to the Cetra, who were meant to maintain the world's flow for your world's entity, and by the other changes being made, you may now find yourselves hearing the same things as the Cetra do from Minerva, but from your entity instead."
"But Summoners aren't a race, that's a trained skill," Rikku blinked. "Right, Yunie?"
"Can just anyone learn it, or is it very specific?" Aeris asked in reply.
Yuna looked cautious as she said slowly, "Only some people can become Summoners. Some train for years, decades even, and still never manage. It seems to be something certain people are born able to do, and others are only capable of 'learning about it', not doing it." She paused, then gave her head a small shake and said, "But I don't believe that qualifies us as a 'race'. More accurately, I believe it qualifies us as an independent religious sect of a sort. If the terms were to include speaking with our world's entity, that would be even more true, and we would have to work very hard to refrain from misusing such power..."
"The Cetra never needed to worry about that, because we could hear Minerva's voice and the voices of the dead, feel those people die and rejoin the Lifestream," Aeris told the older brown haired woman with a smile. "It's hard to stop caring when you feel all deaths and know a little about how they got that way."
As Yuna was about to reply in surprise, she was interrupted by a woman's voice saying, "As good as all that is, you need to know I'm heading back to the Aeroterra to check out something on our monitors." The others looked to see Sanni standing beside her seat at the next table. "I should be back soon. Are you coming back to the Aeroterra or staying here, Karru?"
"Staying! I want to know if that girl—Shelke—will be okay!" Karru replied right away, gaze hopeful as she met her Aunt's eyes.
With a sigh, Sanni nodded and replied, "Fine. At least I know these people won't hurt you or let you hurt yourself." Her gaze met Yuna's as she added, "And so you know, we're not fond of the idea of going to war—with anyone. We have enough to do as it is. As long as no one's attacking anyone else, we're all good." At that, she gave a nod and walked away to where the Captains had left their jet gear.
Yuna looked over at the other Captains and asked, "You all feel the same?"
It was the Captain of the Fahrenheit who said, "As much as I didn't see much of the fight, I've seen the Record Spheres from the other Captains, so I think they have the right of it. Knowing they're aware of their own power is actually a benefit—it means they already know the results if they mis-use it. They can't claim 'an accident' if they already know, and from our history lessons with people being given powerful tools or toys, them not knowing the extent of their power is so often the cause of destruction that this changes the playing field." The man then rose with a grin and called out, "Hey, Tidus, how about we set up a game of blitzball out in the ocean to distract ourselves for a bit?"
Tidus had to laugh as his eyes shone. "Sure thing!" he agreed as he rose. "I'll go track down some of the kids and the jet fighters, and we can set up a whole tournament."
The Captain of the Fahrenheit gave him a 'thumbs-up' as the other Captains voiced eager agreement, then faced Wakka and asked, "You game, Guardian?"
Wakka made a dismissing motion with one hand as he gave them an amused look and said, "If ya want a tournament, ya gotta have someone organize it. Maybe we Guardians can play the winners?"
"Sounds good, Wakka! Thanks!" Tidus grinned. He then turned and made his way through the crowd as Yuna sent a look of amused exasperation after him.
"Um...what's blitzball?" Aeris asked, looking confused.
"It's a sport," Rikku replied in amusement. "It's usually played in an arena made of a huge ball of water suspended in the air, or out in the ocean, lakes, or rivers, and mostly involves two teams scoring on goals with a ball called a blitzball. The kids still play it a lot, but the adults have mostly stopped—it used to be everyone's favorite spectator sport."
"So you're going to play a game while a girl's life is on the line?" Ruluf asked with a frown. Aeris still just looked confused.
"It isn't as though we can do anything for her. It's probably not helping her health to have so many worried people hovering over her all the time," Rikku said dismissively, getting up from the table, walking around it to Aeris, grabbing her arm, and leading her towards the shore. "And since you look oh-so-confused, you're going to come watch it with me."
"But—" Aeris began.
"Live a little, be a kid, see what it's all about—then go back and check on Shelke," Rikku replied, leading her away. The younger red haired Turk fell in with them before they were out of sight, her expression exasperated.
The Captains had already risen and begun spreading out through the crowd of Spirans, and Wakka sat down in the seat Tidus had vacated. He was searching around for something to write with, only for a rather amused Hana to hand him three sheets of paper and two sticks of charcoal.
"Ah! Those are the papers and charcoal Genesis and Eden didn't use!" Karru gasped, pointing at them in surprise.
"They are," Hana agreed.
Wakka blinked at the two girls, then grinned his thanks and began making notes on the top sheet about the tournament organization.
"Sports tournaments take a lot of time to complete, though," Ruluf commented with a small sigh.
"Not blitzball," Yuna told him in amusement. When he raised a brow, she elaborated, "A game only takes six minutes, and that only if there was an actual pause at half-time, after two and a half minutes. Otherwise, it takes five minutes. If we get as many as sixteen teams—I think that's the most we'll manage—it'll only take about two hours to decide a winner, and most of that time will go to team shuffling and letting the players rest as winners are decided. It shouldn't take longer when it's impromptu like this, rather than official."
Ruluf blinked, then blinked again. "Oh, Shiva—you're all 'instant gratification' little kids!" he gaped in horror.
"Nothing wrong with that," Eden said tiredly from behind the man, and Ruluf jolted and spun to face the blond.
"Hi Eden!" Karru grinned. "You really look tired."
"I am," he agreed. "How do you breathe underwater for five or six minutes?"
Everyone else stared at him in surprise—then Yuna began giggling as Wakka gave him an amused smile. It was the man who said in an amused tone, "Al Bhed can automatically stay underwater for extended times—they've never clarified how long. The rest of us train ourselves, but some have an easier time of it than others. Yuna still can only stay underwater for about two minutes and forty seconds."
"Huh," Eden blinked.
"You're okay with them playing games while Shelke is—" Ruluf asked with a frown.
"I don't know that it's necessarily 'okay', but I think all of us need to release some stress or we'll be no help to her at all. We can't take care of someone else if we don't take care of ourselves first. This is a good way to relieve some stress and learn about our new neighbors at the same time, so I don't see why it matters. They probably went 'instant gratification' in sport because the rest of their lives are pretty damned serious," Eden replied.
"Shall we go down to the shore where Rikku and Aeris are, then?" Yuna asked the blond as she rose. He gave her a faint smile and nod, then the two headed away. Karru made a sudden decision and went to grab Genesis to drag him after them, and Hana took Ruluf's arm to lead him to the shore as well.
