"Day followed day, and nothing new presented itself. It merely seemed to him, that the sombre space which still remained to be traversed by him was growing shorter with every instant."

IV: An Apparition to Marius

Les Misérables – Victor Hugo

CHAPTER THIRTEEN: Hand in Hand

Tidus

Tidus had always been able to draw a crowd in A-East. There was nothing easier - an Abes uniform, a couple of Blitzball tricks and the fans would show up in force. Some of their more religious followers could be known to wait in the Plaza all day just to get a signature. If he created enough buzz, or if it was tournament season, even a few camera crews would show up.

This particular day, fuelled by an overwhelming victory against the Duggles, Tidus had climbed up onto the town crier's plinth to give a spur-of-the-moment speech about the upcoming Spiran Cup. Rikku was there, of course, to lead the cheers. She'd supported the Al Bhed Psyches when he first met her, but he'd changed that soon enough.

"Last year we let the Crystal Cup slip through our fingers!" he was yelling to the crowd steadily gathering below the plinth. "This time, we're gonna grab it with both hands!"

The surrounding throng broke into automatic cheer, hooting and applauding sounding across the square, little plastic Abes flags waving with grand spectacle.

"Do your best isn't good enough for us. Not when we're representing the greatest city in the whole of Spira!" That always got the crowd riled up. "So tell me – what's our goal?"

"VICTORY!" came the returning cry, the roar of the crowd sizzling beneath his feet like the approach of an underground machina.

"That's right!" Tidus cried. "Win every match! Defeat every team! We're gonna bring the Crystal Cup back home where it belongs!"

Cries of "The Abes!" and "Victory! Victory!" reverberated around the Plaza. After that, Tidus was so fired up he would have just kept talking… if it hadn't been for the girl.

He didn't know how long she had been there before he noticed her - a young girl, no older than seventeen – holding herself apart from the crowd, looking as out of place as a bird in a deep ocean. Her foreign colourings marked her a lonely figure – her skin with a lunar paleness, her russet head in a sky full of suns - dressed as though she had stepped into the Plaza from another age, an age of Summoners and Aeons and ancient things. And boy, was she was ever beautiful.

"Hi there," Tidus found himself saying.

The girl slowly lifted her bi-coloured eyes and gazed up at him with an expression so sad and haunting it pierced him to the core. She made a little bowing gesture like a prayer girl – a farewell gesture – and turned away from him.

Tidus felt confusion swell in his chest as his eyes followed her. She's lost, he realised, seeing her take a bad alley.

The crowd had dispersed now, along with Rikku, and Tidus found himself alone on the plinth. The air around him seemed to stick, and for a moment an unshakable paralysis was upon him. When it broke, he leapt from the plinth in a lightening split second to follow her. His sneakers rang against the pavement like they were made of stone. The girl walked ahead of him, always out of reach, and though she must have heard his footsteps, she never looked back, never turned to see if he was there. He wanted to see her face again, just for a second, but how could he call her when he didn't know her name?

He walked a little faster now, following her down the back alleys of A-East, past the low-hanging window boxes dripping with hibiscus flowers, never seeming to get any closer to her. When she turned a corner into the old smuggler's alley, he lost her completely. He heard the whistle grow fainter, and then he was running, running as fast as he ever had. He ran so fast he almost slammed into the black iron gates.

Tidus gazed up at them in despair; the thick, nightmarish bars seemed to rise up into the thundering clouds. He rattled the iron; shook the bars, cursed them, beat his gloves against them until the leather tore and his knuckles bled, and all the while the whistle grew fainter still.

Then he remembered her name.

"YUNA!"

He woke breathless, as though the weight of an ocean was pressing down on him. Tidus lunged forwards in his bed, gulping for air. The dream had taken hold like a suffocating claw, so vivid that it took him a blurry moment to separate the illusions from reality.

He pressed the heels of his hands into his eyes. Just another dream, he reassured himself, it was just another dream. It hadn't been as bad as some of the others. The dreams where she ran from him, hated him, or, worst of all, the dreams where she lay lifeless above the bloody star.

With a tremendous effort Tidus peeled away his sweat-soaked coverlets and stumbled from the bed. He hadn't been getting much sleep lately. His game was suffering because of it too - he'd been sloppy and distracted at practice lately - but Wakka never gave him a hard time over it. He suspected Lulu had a lot to do with that.

When he climbed into the shower and pushed his head underneath the jet, Tidus felt the dream begin to wash away. As soon as the force of the spray slammed into him, a rush of adrenaline shot through his veins. Blitz fever, he thought wryly. All players joked about experiencing the phenomenon in a power shower. The sharpened senses, the burn of increased energy. And with it, a blast of fresh determination to find the girl he had lost.

After all, he thought, surrendering simply wasn't in his blood. I'm coming for you, Yuna.

Once he had dressed and towelled dry his hair, he found Rikku waiting for him on the harbour deck with breakfast-to-go from Zaons. Tidus gulped down the pulpy paupou drink she had brought him and attacked the hot kymdda pastry with both hands. He finished so fast that Rikku was shaking her head by the end of it.

"Okay, Ace!" she commanded, as though calling him to attention. "We ready to go?"

Tidus had to smile. Sometimes he thought Rikku's enthusiasm was all that got him through the day.

The little Al Bhed had been his faithful shadow these past difficult weeks. She was the only one who'd insisted on joining the search for Yuna. As Abes Captain, Wakka had been busy preparing for the annual Blitz Ball. And Lulu… she had offered her aid only sparingly, which had disappointed him more than he would ever dare say to the mage's face.

But Rikku… she had gone as far as pulling favours with her other friends to join the search for Yuna. Even her Brother had offered to help, but his sister had shot down that idea in an instant. "He's got a stupid annoying crush on her," she had confided to Tidus, mortified. "He's so embarrassing! If he got to Yunie first he'd probably just scare her away again!"

Together he and Rikku had searched every site that Yuna had ever made mention of; the Zanarkand Opera house, the botanical gardens, the machina museum, the Moogle sanctuary in A-North. Every bookshop, every library, even a carpenter's shop tucked away in B-South which made stunning Summoner staffs for Senders and collectors. Many of their workers remembered her passing with her father or an older woman Tidus assumed was the Acolyte, but not since before the Sending.

That morning he and Rikku made their rounds; the lemondrop park in D-West which had been a favourite of Yuna's, the fountains in A-East plaza which had sometimes been their meeting spot after a game, even Silverwings - as unlikely as that was, Tidus was not unwilling to overlook any possibility. He had even asked one of the employees who worked the cameras on the crowds at Zanarkand Stadium to get a shot of any girl of Yuna's description. The guy hadn't protested much at that request.

The C-North library had been Tidus' idea. Yuna had never spoken of it, but it was the closest source of literature available to her, and anyone could see that she was well-read. Unsurprisingly, the boy at the information desk knew exactly who they were speaking of.

"Yeah, I know her," he told them, a typical Zanarkand youth with handsome features and cropped blonde hair. "The girl that wears those weird beads in her hair? Shy little thing. Cute though, in a kittenish kind of way."

"Yeah," Tidus said through gritted teeth.

The boy turned to Rikku, smiling flirtatiously. "She a relative of yours, sweetheart? You got the same look."

"Nope!" Rikku replied easily. "Just a friend!" Good thing Rikku can see through your act, Tidus thought to himself. "Do you remember when she was here last?

The boy stretched in his chair. "Hasn't been here for a while, I would have remembered. I think she was learning Al Bhed or something. Her Dad always takes a bunch of Phoenix Down broadsheets. The dude was always glaring at me." It was the only time Tidus had ever felt grateful of Yuna's father.

"The girl was friendly enough," he carried on, oblivious to the glare he was receiving from the Blitzball player. "When I could get a word out of her. Would have liked to have seen a little more skin though, if you know what I mean."

Rikku dragged Tidus out of the library before he could punch the guy.

"What's a guy like him doing working somewhere like that?" Tidus complained all the way back to B-North. Probably terrorizing all the sweet girls like Yuna. He belongs in some seedy bar in C-South.

"Oh, summer job, probably," suggested Rikku in a too-innocent voice. He realised she was trying to reign in laughter.

"What's so funny?"

"He's just like you, you know. A big flirt."

"Woah, I'm sorry – you're comparing me to that guy?"

Rikku rolled her eyes. "The day before Yunie left, you were flirting with that all-girl Blitzer team right in front of her!"

"What?"

"Don't deny it - you were flirting like crazy!"

"What? No I wasn't!"

"Yes, you were!"

Tidus bit off a retort, genuinely taken back by the insinuation. He thought back to that thundery day of the Kilika Beasts match, remembered how how strange and distant Yuna had first acted when he met her. Sure, he had talked to the girls, complimented them even, but it hadn't meant anything. "Not seriously," he told Rikku disbelievingly.

The Al Bhed girl sent him a meaningful look. "How is Yunie supposed to know that?"

It was a slap in the face, and it was followed by a long, guilty silence. Is that really what it looked like to her? "I really messed up, huh?" Tidus said eventually.

Rikku sighed noisily, exasperated. "She'd never look at any of those guys anyway, cemmo. We girls are like that, you know."

Tidus considered her then, walking beside him with an uncharacteristically solemn look on her young face. He wondered if she was thinking of Gippal. Sometimes he forgot that she would be turning seventeen next year. She's changing too, and I hadn't even noticed it. Maybe that was what made him put an arm around her shoulders.

"Thanks, Rikku," he said quietly as she leaned into him, and meant it.

They stopped by the wild garden last. Tidus hadn't been back since that day with the boy, but it had always called to him. Somehow, with Rikku there, he found the strength to stand before those iron gates again. The ivy was still as full and thick as ever, he noticed, but only a few of the hibiscus were surviving the new young tenant. Most were visibly withering – the rest clung to the walls and nestled between the black iron bars, seeking safe haven from restless feet.

Rikku peered unashamedly into the garden. "This is where you guys used to meet, huh?" When he nodded, she became nostalgic. "I only came here once before. She was sitting right over there, see? - half asleep and everything! It was when we went to your Blitz match together. The Psyches game, you remember? She was so shy, she barely spoke to me unless I said something first."

"She was always shy," Tidus agreed softly. "You remember that night at Silverwings? She was holding that menu like it was some kind of life raft." He smiled. "But sometimes she got this look in her eyes… like that night I took her to the stadium for the first time." He ran a hand through his hair. "Gods, I loved it when she lit up like that. That all feels so long ago now..."

They stood side by side in the colourless silence, staring into the emptiness, the dying flowers. Tidus felt like a body being carried on the waves, waiting and waiting to break upon the shore. There was nothing to take hold of, and the sea stretched before him for miles.

A shrill ringing broke the mood that had descended over him, and he noticed Rikku fishing in her pocket for her CommSphere. As a courtesy, Tidus turned away, but he recognised the sound of Gippal's voice at the end of the link.

"Ehhhh? Fryd geht uvcusadrehk?Yht tu hud lymm sa Cid's girl!" Rikku was yelling into the commsphere, sounding exasperated.

They were speaking in Al Bhed far too rapidly for Tidus to catch anything useful. Instead he could only listen with a lingering sense of envy. In the past, he might have interrupted the conversation with a smart remark, exchanging light-hearted barbs with Gippal until Rikku put an end to it. Tidus missed the Al Bhed mechanic more than he would ever admit. Gippal could be a jackass at times, but he had been Tidus' best friend since they were both crawling, and would have known exactly how to take his mind off Yuna.

"Naymmo? E femm pa drana nekrd yfyo!"

Rikku cut the link abruptly with a snap and turned to Tidus. "I have to go home now," she told him. Whatever it was that Gippal had said to her, she obviously had no intention of sharing.

"Thanks for today," he told her again.

He must have looked pathetic standing there on his own, because she hesitated before leaving. "Listen," she told him. "Don't give up, okay? We'll find her soon, for sure."

"I'm not," Tidus promised. "I won't."

"Good, because I don't want to have to kick you."

He smiled at her weakly. It was Rikku's unique brand of sympathy, too honest for him to ever resent.

When she was gone he wrapped his hands around the bars of the garden gates, thinking about the last time he had seen Yuna. The memory of their last night together tortured him - Dona's body above the bloody star, the emptiness on Yuna's face as she danced, the unrelenting rain. What were the last words they said to each other? Did I even say goodnight to her? He must have seemed so cold.,,

As he gazed into the vacant garden, he imagined Yuna standing silent in the sphere of moonlight there, hand locked around that little silver necklace she always wore. He pictured the way she always tried to hide her yawns behind her hand, and thought he would break with longing.

"Where did you go?" he said quietly, achingly into the garden. "You're missing everything. With Rikku, and… the Blitz Ball is coming up, I wanted to surprise you. I was always going to take you, even before..." He closed his eyes. "I miss you, Yuna."

What am I doing? he thought all of a sudden. This isn't the Farplane. Just thinking of her isn't going to make her appear before me. Much as he might wish it would.

Actions would bring her back, not wishes, and tomorrow was another day.

When Tidus turned to leave, he almost tripped over a cat lurking before the gates. Cursing, he knelt to see if he'd hurt the thing, when he recognised the ragged left ear.

"Kimahri," he acknowledged with a start, plucking the name from the edge of his memories. "What are you still doing here, little guy?"

Tidus grabbed him by the scruff of the neck before he could scamper off. Even given the ragged ear, the kitten looked a little scrawnier than he had the last time Tidus had seen him, like he hadn't eaten in days.

His heart pounded in his chest. Should he take this as a sign of hope? Yuna would never have left Kimahri behind willingly, he knew that much. She would never have left Zanarkand without him… so does that mean she's still here? Or did it mean she'd been swept away against her will, with no time to take her pet?

"Guess it's too much to hope that you could take me to Yuna, huh?" he asked the kitten, setting him down gently.

Released at last, Kimahri turned his attentions to a dead hibiscus husk, pouncing on its white spidery form, attempting to ingest it, then making a choking sound.

Tidus sighed. "Thought so." He tried to bury the implications of the kitten's presence at the garden for now, instead kneeling to scoop the beast into his arms. Guess you're coming home with me for now, little guy, he thought, ruffling the silky bluish fur. Kimahri settled around his shoulders like a scarf, yawning just as his Mistress had been prone to do. It was a comforting sensation, holding something of hers. And comforting too, for the first time, not to take the path back to the houseboat alone.

Yuna

The light of a polished moon shifted through the suburb of D-West, casting shadows through Yuna's window and over the pages of her book. She pinched the bridge of her nose in an effort to awake her senses. She felt as though she had been reading since dawn.

Well-thumbed volumes of Summoner lore covered her bed like a patchwork quilt. Guardian's travel diaries, old legends of Yunalesca and Zaon, the memoirs of Lady Yocun, all the Sender literature that Belgemine had kindly left to her; Yuna poured over each of them in turn. She studied tedious military accounts of battles with Sin and devoured books of old Yevonite hymns until her eyes were sore, all in the pursuit of magery.

If they were going to face any danger, Yuna would have to be prepared in her own way. She had no hope of matching someone of Lulu's capabilities, of course - it would take years for her to even acquire half the black mage's skill. But from her reading it seemed as though those who had the talent for the Sending often had a natural affinity for healing magic. And she thought that defensive magic, though notoriously difficult, might be within her potential too. The difficulty was, of course, that magery was a dying art. Its centre of learning had been within the Yevonite temples, now ten years extinct. Why would Spira pass on the knowledge - who wanted the violence of the black arts to shatter the Eternal Calm? Even white magic was vanishing, now that Spira had embraced machina and Al Bhed remedies. The best hope I have is gathering what I can from these pages.

Consuming what little knowledge she could had also kept her mind from more painful matters. Since her quarrel with Auron, Yuna had spent most of her time upstairs in her room in a state of self-exile, by turns angry, sorry and fearful for her father. For herself, she felt wretched for losing her restraint on the subject of her mother and causing him unnecessary suffering.

I would rather never know my mother's name, she had told Lulu once, than see that pain in his eyes again. Yet she had blurted the question almost before she could form a thought. Why won't you tell me about my mother? His silence on that matter she would always forgive, but not so the rest of his secrets, not when they continued to cast a shadow over his life and hers. She was done with artificial smiles, with their false theatre. It was truth she wanted, the truth that she had paid for with the sacrifice of her friends.

Sighing, Yuna laid the book open on its spine, rising from the bed to light a few solitary candles around her room. Watching them flicker to life always reminded her of the bonfires held by the villagers on Besaid Sands – the shadows dancing and twisting on her walls like exotic dancers.

When she felt she had enough light, Yuna went to her window and drew the curtains closed, shutting out the moon, the streetlights and above all, Zanarkand. It was a feeble effort, but the only defense she had against the gnawing fang of melancholy. The evening was the most difficult time to keep her mind from wandering.

She missed the gentle distraction of Kimahri. She knew Auron had returned to their old house several times under cover of darkness to try to retrieve the little creature, but it was all to no avail. The kitten was run away, lost or dead. I should have given him a collar, Yuna admonished herself. Yet he had seemed such a free spirit she had decided it wouldn't be fair to him. When she thought about Kimahri wandering the streets alone and half-starved it brought tears to her eyes.

Unable to face thinking of him, or introduce herself to yet another volume of soulless Summoner lore, Yuna scanned her room for a worthier distraction. Her gaze finally fell upon the boxes stacked against the far wall, belongings salvaged from the old house in B-North. Until now, Yuna had found herself unable to confront the task of unpacking them. Like Kimahri, she had been unwilling to accept this place as her new home. But that was before she knew the depths of her father's resolve.

Once she had disassembled the tower of boxes, Yuna knelt beside the first and carefully pulled open the cardboard flaps. One by one she began to reverently remove the items, allowing each memory to blossom in her hand for a moment like a lingering perfume, then set them on the floor beside her. It was full of familiar southern mementos; rainbowed Besadian beads and rare white seashells from the depths of the Baaj sea. One of her favourite trinkets was wrapped in tissue - a little glass bird, its hollow centre filled with dyed blue sand. A present for my First Sending, she recalled. Other items went further back; a red felt shoe from a ragdoll she had owned in Bevelle, and some were more recent, such as a calendar of Zanarkand scenery that she had purchased at a gallery with Shelinda.

When she spotted the faded music box, Yuna smiled. She couldn't remember how she came to own it – a cast-off from one of the islanders, perhaps – but she did remember learning the lyrics from Belgemine. It played a Bevellian love song so ancient that no one knew its origins. When she was a child the words had seemed so incomprehensible to her that she had implored her old teacher to tell her what they meant. Belgemine had smiled beautifully and told her that day would come when she was older.

Yuna held the box nestled in her open palm, almost afraid to awaken it. Yet her fingers began to caress the handle almost by impulse and the little song from her childhood floated back to her, the music twinkling sweetly.

"If we could walk hand in hand," Yuna half-murmured, half-sang, remembering. "I'd want to go to your land, your home, in your arms-"

She froze when she saw her father standing outside her doorway. Strangely, he was smiling at her. It reminded her of when she was a child and wholly occupied with some innocent task, and she would turn to find him watching her with that same unreadable smile, his thoughts as remote and mysterious to her as they ever had been, and ever would be. Yuna blushed, embarrassed at being caught in the song.

"Come downstairs," Auron told her, straightening. "I want to speak with you."

He had lit a fire in the little salon. Yuna, too restless to sit, and too wounded from their late argument to meet his eyes without any condemnation, chose to stand by the hearth as he spoke.

"I am leaving tomorrow evening," he said without preamble.

She paled at once. "Where? Where are you going to go?"

"There is something I need to do."

If he leaves, he will never return. An icy, sickening dread engulfed her. "No,"she told him hoarsely.

"I am simply gone to make enquiries," he hastened to assure her. "There will be no fighting, no battles. It will be a safer journey than any Crusader mission, I promise you."
He smiled at her wearily. "I thought you would be glad to be rid of me for a time."

Yuna rounded on him then. "How can you talk like this is all a joke?" she accused. "It's your life we're speaking of! You tell me nothing, how can you expect me to let you leave and not fear for you?"

Auron grew serious at that, the same way he had when teaching her the most difficult lessons in her girlhood. The lessons which dealt with life and death. At times like those, Yuna could always see the warrior in him; a reminder that, before he had been her father, he had been something else entirely. As a child it had fascinated her, that subtle change in him, but now it only filled her heart with trepidation. "I have carried this katana since before you were born." All warmth had fled his voice. "Men like me have nothing to fear from the any leavings of the Eternal Calm."

Yuna turned away from him. "What do I know of the battles you've won, the battles you've lost," she said, not without bitterness. The scar on your face is proof that you are not invincible, father. She found she could not voice the thought aloud, but whether due to fear of bruising his pride or fear of admitting the disturbing truth to herself she did not know.

When she felt the weight of his hand on her shoulder, she thought that she would cry. "Yuna," he said quietly, "I would not leave you, if I thought there was some danger I could not return to you. That would be my worst failing."

She trembled beneath his hand, overcome with love even as her heart threatened to break. The child in her wanted to throw herself into the safety of his arms, close her eyes to everything and give herself over to his keeping once more. But she was not a child any longer. What is it all for? she thought despairingly. What does it all mean, if this is the person I will spend the rest of my life with, and he will not even trust me?

Auron seemed to take her silence as a defeat. "I have arranged a companion for you while I am gone," he told her, taking his hand from her shoulder.

When she heard him say it, Yuna felt her heart grow heavier still. Another Shelinda, she thought tiredly. Another soul to hide her grief from. Another person to wear a mask for. I'd rather be alone.

"I have invited her to meet you tonight, so listen well. She was known to one of my companions in the Crusaders. A man I trust. I met her myself last week and judged her suitable. She will not live with us as Shelinda did; she has family of her own. But she has offered to stay with you in my absence." Her father adopted a small, cheerless smile. "I believe you will like her; she used to be a Guardian."

At the word guardian Yuna's breath caught. A thousand questions rose in her throat, every one of them certain to arouse her father's suspicion.

"Wait here and you may decide for yourself," he told her.

Yuna could feel herself swaying on her feet, the ground shifting and undulating beneath her. It couldn't possibly be. She felt a pressure, the slightest push against the fragile shell she had been building for herself these past months. Something she had buried deep beneath those piles of books and boxes of distraction stirred, a wild creature waiting to break free.

When Auron returned, the black mage swept into the room behind him like an ancient queen; swanlike, strikingly beautiful… with irises the colour of a bloody sunset.

"You must be Yuna," she said, this woman she so dearly knew, gracefully offering a hand. "It's an honour to meet you."

The Troubadour

Deim had once heard it said that walking into Macalania for the first time was like stumbling into a dream. The forest's shining skyways stretched out like a frosted labyrinth before him, butterflies parting like clouds with every step. Some settled on his mop of grey hair or brushed the silk strings of the harp strapped to his back.

If Macalania was a dream, it was one that Deim had stumbled into most knowingly. The forest was the sacred pinnacle of a troubadour's road, just as Zanarkand had been for the Summoners of old. All bards at one time in their lives were drawn here by the promise of a perfect melody. Spira's most famous musicians had won their fame here - some had lived and died here too, like the blue bard and the Moonflower. The great composer Isken had written Silver Night here for his lady love Linna. "When both our hearts were young and bright," Deim sang lustily, enjoying himself, "we walked beneath the silver night!"

In his younger days Deim had been reckless, singing baudy songs where he should not - songs to provoke, or songs to coax pretty faces into his bed. The latter had earned him a broken-toothed smile and the nickname Crooked Deim. Yet after Sin swept Kilika in the year before the Eternal Calm, he had turned his heart to the old songs. Songs that honoured his childhood, his homeland and the brothers he had lost. That was when he began composing too. A Sunrise for sweet Kulukan. Left So Long for his father. He even played his part in adding to the countless compositions made in High Summoner Braska's honour.

Now he came in search of new melodies. Macalania was the very birthplace of song, and it would soon be lost forever. After the Fall of Sin, it was said that the Aeon Shiva's hold over her frozen blue domain had shattered like the ice that once enveloped it. It was said that the forest was dying, that its once glorious temple had thawed and begun to crumble.

When Deim passed through the trees and came to the centre of the forest at last, he saw that it was worse than he imagined. The ruins of the sunken temple were now scarcely visible above the surface of Macalania's renowned spherewater lake; spiral staircases of pink marble rose from the watery depths and ended in mid-air. In the heart of the lake, a lonely statue of Shiva still stood defiant, a costly carving with long locks wrought in luxurious blue ceramic. Yet her stone face had begun to crumble, making rough grey tears across her cheeks. Lesser statues surrounded her, half-submerged with arms grasping for the sky like a drowning village.

It was a haunting sight, one that Deim could not drink in without the taste of grief. Yet there was something tragic and beautiful about decay. Something a worthy bard could capture in a song, he thought, not without mischief. Hebegan to make his way around the lake, humming Ispen's Silver Night under his breath, songs and verses forming in his mind like waves and ripples.

When he reached the bank, it took him a moment to realise he was not alone.

"Magnificent, isn't she?"

Deim could not have been more stunned had the statue itself come to life and introduced itself. The great shadowy figure standing beside him, gazing out to the lake, was a Guado.

"Alas that her light has been snuffed from this world." Another voice joined, and out of the low hanging mists appeared a little fat man, dressed in long robes that made him look like a child's play tent.

When Deim saved himself from falling backwards into the water, he found the Guado smiling down at him kindly. "Do not be alarmed," he said calmly. "We mean you no harm."

"Times are hard for those such as us," added the fat man. "We simply came seeking shelter in these woods."

Deim bowed to them in Yevonite fashion, awestruck and speechless. He could not seem to stop staring at the Guado. The blue veins amidst those flawless features reminded him of a rhyme his mother had taught him when he was a child. In blue veins magic reigns. Indeed a veil of magic seemed to surround the stranger, right down to the two long, lacquered nails extending from each of his hands. Yet this smooth-cheeked creature was surely unlike any other of his race. Could it be that he has human blood in him?

The Guado laughed at the look on Deim's face, a deep rumble as though the earth itself laughed with him. "Come – join us! You must be weary. Where have you travelled from?"

The warmth of his laughter reassured Deim, and somehow he recovered his wits. The old troubadour allowed himself a grin. "Oh, everywhere, my Lord." The Guado could not be a Lord, of course, but he inspired the same reverence as the great Maesters once had, long ago. "I have travelled from the depths of the Baaj sea, from the great frozen peaks of Gagazet, from the scalding sands of Bikanel. I am Deim, a troubadour of Kilika, at your service." He made a great sweeping bow and flourished his cloak.

The Guado chuckled again. "Yes, you are indeed. Please, dine with us. There is plenty to share."

Deim accepted the offer with overflowing gratitude. The strangers' feast offerings were splendid, more suitable for a spread at a luxury Zanarkand hotel than a shadowy corner of decaying Macalania. To his delight, Deim recognized many delicacies rumoured to be favourites of the Guado; hot peppery bannock bread, berry clusters dripping with red juice, rare truffles from Guadosalem and a pitcher of rich Bevellian wine. Deim himself supplied three juicy papou fruit and a handful of Kilikan sweetcakes from his homeland.

This morning I was at the Omega port, the singer thought to himself in wonder, and tonight I am breaking bread with a Guado in a blue paradise.

As they conversed, Deim soon realized that the Guado was a creature of deep wisdom, a true scholar. To know that their kind would soon be gone from this world grieved the singer more than he could say.

There were those he knew who would kill a Guado on sight. Their species had fallen hard in the aftermath of the Eternal Calm after the exposure of their corrupt temple, the shame of the Maesters and the Unsent. But they were not the only species guilty of wrongdoing in those dark ages Sin wrought. That time drew the darkness from every Spiran creature. Looking at this noble face, exiled from the world, Deim knew that Spira would suffer a great loss.

After their feast, the troubadour sought his harp and sang a few pieces for the two strangers; his oldest and most beloved.

"You have indeed travelled wide," the Guado admired when he was done. "That much is plain from the richness of your art. I wonder… might you have seen my old friends upon your journeys?"

The fat man's eyebrows knit together. "I don't think we should get our hopes up, my friend."

The Guado only smiled charmingly at his companion. "It is said 'help unlooked-for often comes.' Perhaps this meeting was not by chance, Kinoc." He turned to Deim, eyes glittering. "Tell me, have you ever met a man by the name of Auron? A warrior, or perhaps a monk."

"Aye," answered Deim swiftly. "I knew an Auron. Auron of Besaid. He had a great scar across his eye, like so. He hired me and some fellows for his daugher's nameday feast. A sweet young thing, I do recall. Aye, and with a good and right love for the old songs, the best songs." He plucked a harp string.

"It can't have been the same man," said the man Kinoc dismissively. "Auron never had a daughter. He was sworn to chastity. And Yevon forbid he should ever go against his precious honour."

"Show him," suggested the Guado.

The fat put a hand inside his ample flowing robes and retrieved a Sphere. As he held it out to Deim, the image of a young warrior flickered to life, his long dark hair pulled back from his face. The man's whole stance suggested discipline and cool control, yet his eyes… there was something fierce and untamed lingering in their depths. They were the kind of eyes one did not forget easily.

"Aye, that's surely him, my Lords."

"Oh?" The fat man stroked his chin. "Well, well. There's an oddity, oh yes. Why would Auron choose to look after a young girl? The only thing he ever cared for was his Lord." He frowned at Deim. "Tell me, my friend, what did the girl look like?"

As it happened, Deim never forgot a pretty face. He grinned and told the strangers so. "And… now that I do remember it, my Lord, her eyes were most remarkable, just like her father's. 'Cept she had one green and the other blue. She had a drop of Al-Bhed blood in her, I'd swear by it. Yuna…" he recollected suddenly. "Aye, that was her name. Yuna, for the Lady Yunalesca."

The fat man laughed again, a little louder this time. He had an ugly laugh, the kind that had no humour in it. "So the rumours had truth after all! Only a self-righteous fool like Braska would name his daughter after the First Summoner."

When the two companions bent their heads together in hushed conversation, Deim found himself wishing he was somewhere else. Their whispers made an unsettling contrast with the soft lapping of the inky spherewater against the bank.

Eventually the Guado acknowledged their rudeness and returned his attention to Deim. "It is a handsome instrument you own," the creature complimented, gesturing elegantly to the harp. "The craftmanship is truly exquisite. Tell me, do you know 'The Lay of Anima'?"

At the sound of the Guado's pleasant, earthy voice, Deim relaxed again. "That I do, my Lord," he answered. "A sad tale." He remembered playing the very same song for the young girl at her nameday. Yuna, a pretty name for a pretty face.

"Will you do me the honour of playing it for me?"

It was a rare request, and even the fat man looked troubled, laying a gentle hand on the Guado's arm. Anima was a dark song. And yet, who was Deim to question the pleasures of such a being? He bowed low, crossed his legs and repositioned the harp before him.

He spun the song into the dark night, singing as sweetly as he ever had, his voice carrying over the water like a bell. In the absence of his fellows, the chime of Macalania's crystal formations were Deim's accompaniment and the boundless stars above gazed down on him in silent audience.

At the final verse, he lifted his gaze to the Guado, and that was his mistake.

He was used to tears after this song, but these tears were different; cruel and ragged and terrible. The Guado's face had paled to bonedust, and his eyes stared at Deim with a cold fury such as he had never known. Madness danced in those eyes.

He was so startled that he never saw the claws; the long, elegant nails reaching for him until they were wrapped firmly around his neck; and then the Guado was squeezing, choking him.

Deim raised his hands and tried to pry the claws off of him, but it was like trying to move an iron clamp.

Gasping, he reached out for the fat man's help, but he had been watching the whole time, his pale, round face the very picture of calm.

Author's Notes

SO. First up – if anyone is going to Nobuo Uematsu's Distant Worlds concert in London on November 5thand would like to say hello (I'm going on my own!) – give me a PM and we can exchange details! I am a bubbly female in her early twenties so do NOT fear awkwardness! : ) It would be nice to meet with some other FF enthusiasts to squeal with before the show starts!

Story Notes:

Another transitional chapter, more or less. Don't kill me! The next chapter will definitely not be.

The final scene featured the singer Yuna spoke to all the way back in chapter 1. That scene was one of the first I ever wrote!

Don't expect too much intrigue from the subplot. It's only really there because I felt I had to build something around all the Tidus/Yuna smush. Most of you can probably predict exactly what will happen with it. I came up with it about six years ago, so it's pretty fanfic-cliche. Okay, I should probably stop rubbishing my own story.

The next chapter is nearly completed (ie. hopefully no more than a month away, less if I really work at it), and it may be the easiest chapter I've ever written for this story. Take that as you will!