Disclaimer: Final Fantasy X, Spira, blitzball, and all related characters and locations are owned by Squaresoft, with the exception of a few original characters who will be noted as such. This is a work of fanfiction, meaning that it is both created by a fan for no purpose other than entertainment, and it is fiction, meaning that all characters and events are purely fictonal and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
I used the lyrics to the Hymn of the Fayth in here, including the translation. This information was obtained from http://ffxpert.cartoonhit.com/lyrics.html. It was blatantly stolen without permission from said brilliant site, so I'd just like to note that none of this is my work and all credit should go to whoever figured that out at FFExpert. Thanks, guys. Please don't sue me. _;;
Author's Note: The narrator of this story is Al Bhed, and some dialogue and idiomatic phrases have not been translated into English. Translations of all Al Bhed phrases can be found at the end of the chapter in which they appear.
Green Eyes in Overdrive
by flame mage
round 14: Healer
**********
I did a double-take. My first thought was that I had to be hallucinating. There was no way I'd just heard Jassu say something. Then I realized that if I was going to bother to hallucinate, it would make more sense to imagine Bickson or Naaga, who I wanted to see even more. Having established that I probably wasn't crazy, I braced myself and looked.
"Jassu! You're alive!" I gasped.
He looked offended. "You losin' it, Cap'n? A'course I'm alive. We were just tryin' to figure out a way to get that sucker when you did it for us."
"Who's 'we'?" Reppi asked again, in the same tone of voice with which she'd asked me. I got a flash of deja vu. For once, Naida just looked on silently. She was still tending to Zalitz, who was conscious and sucking air hard now.
"All the rest of us, ya?" Letty said from behind us. "Good ta see ya, Cap'n. That sister a'yours's been pretty worried."
"Ahh, I wasn't," Jassu said lazily. "Cap'n LinLin can get herself outta anythin'."
"Where are we?" Naida piped up, already playing hardball.
"The Via Purifico," the two Aurochs answered together. Then Letty continued, "The two a'us've been down here 'bout...what, Jass, four days now, ya? Your sister and the Crusader and that idiot Goer showed up a couple days later. We got kinda a camp set up a couple caves back, but until today we hadn't gone this far--weren't really sure we could take that thing on. We're hopin' there's an exit out this--" He stopped. "'Zzat Reppi?!"
"You just now noticed, child?" Reppi asked. "Lord, how can you play blitzball with eyes like that?"
Jassu blurted out, "But--but--you're dead."
The Spiral goalie laughed. "It'd take more'n a couple priests to kill me, boy. I've been up there--" she cocked her head toward the cliff "--for a couple years now."
"Hey, guys," I started. "This is great and all, but can we do it at your camp? Zalitz is still in bad shape. He'd better rest up--cred, we'd all better rest up while we can--and then we'll see if there's an exit this way."
The two Aurochs exchanged glances. Then Letty said, "You got it, Cap'n," and started off.
*****
We swam for several minutes through several caves that all looked alike. Letty and Jassu led the way, Naida--who was under the drastically mistaken impression that they cared--was following about half a foot behind them ranting about how cold the water was and how she missed her poor darling Aniki, and Reppi and I brought up the rear with Zalitz in tow. Like servants.
After a while, the guys stopped in front of a green wall. When I looked closely, I saw that it wasn't a wall; it was a thick net of seagrasses woven together. Stuck into the grasses were dozens of sharpened rocks. Naida sucked in her breath and drew back.
"Here it is, Cap'n," Jassu announced listlessly. "Home sweet frickin' home."
"The net?" Naida asked.
Jassu shook his head. "Look behind it."
I found a gap between two reeds where there weren't any rocks and peeped through. On the other side of the net, I could see a smallish cave that looked exactly like every other cave we'd gone through. 'Home sweet frickin' home' looked cold and damp and not too comfortable. Also, it was completely underwater. I was having a hard time figuring out what made this natural dump even slightly habitable.
Letty must have read my mind, because he asked, "We got patches of seaweed growing on the cave wall. Those're our beds. We tied 'em together so we could strap ourselves in--seatbelts like you guys got in your machina. We sleep like that."
"Letty made it up," Jassu explained. Letty's tanned face flushed and he waved it off. The guard continued, "We eat the seaweed too. For a coupla days we didn't eat anything, but...well...ya get hungry enough, ya?"
"How do you keep the fiends away?" Reppi asked.
"At first we just fought 'em whenever they came by, but when the womenfolk showed up we figured we needed a better way. We made the nets outta the seaweed and chipped off bits of rock to weave in. Fiends can break through 'em easily, but most of 'em don't wanna get anywhere near those rocks. We've been okay for the most part. Hey, kid," he called, "Open the gate for a minute already , ya? It's us."
"Hang on already!" griped a familiar voice that would've made my breath catch in my throat if I'd been breathing. For the last few minutes, we'd been completely underwater, with no room to come up for air. Given the way Zalitz was looking, I decided we'd better get some soon.
A small hand with a half-glove on and bright purple fingernails cautiously pulled the net aside and a face looked through. Then the entire net was dropped to the cave floor and Naaga shot through it like a cannon, tightening her arms around my neck until she nearly choked me. "Linnie!" she cried.
Bubbles streamed out of her mouth and into my face. My eyes started burning inside my goggles, and I realized I was probably crying. "Naaga!" I think I yelled back as I crunched her ribcage. "Are you okay? Did those jerks lay a hand on you?"
"Nah, I'm fine, Linnie," she replied cheerfully. "The seaweed tastes bad, but I'm not hurt at all. I think maybe the one guard felt kinda sorry for me--he said I reminded him of his daughter, and he didn't push me in like he did Miyu and Bickson. I'm kinda worried about Miyu, though. She doesn't talk much. I think she's really sad."
"The kid's right," Letty agreed. "That Glory lady's been really down ever since she showed up. You think you can talk to her?"
"I can try."
Reppi waved a hand at me. "Go ahead, then. We'll hold down the fort here."
"See how the gate on the udda' side'a the cave unlatches, Cap'n?" Jassu asked. "She's over there. When you want to come back, just holler, ya?"
*****
This cave had a grand total of one ledge, and it was occupied by Miyu. She was sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs, hugging them to her chest. She looked like a little girl, the way Naaga did when she was trying to be cute and make me feel sorry for her so I wouldn't yell at her about not doing the dishes. Except Miyu definitely wasn't putting on an act. She really seemed lost.
"Hey," I said softly, swimming over and chinning myself on the ledge. "You okay?"
She didn't say anything. I could've kicked myself. Zaaw, oy ehcahcedeja sunuh, dryd fyc csynd. "Sorry. Stupid question."
"No." She shook her head slowly, not looking at me. "I am still a bit...shaken. It...it is..." Abruptly she stopped and something hardened in her voice. "I'm tired of being so formal. It sucks, Linna. We were betrayed. I threw away my whole life for this...this shit!"
I stared at her. I couldn't remember ever hearing her curse. I couldn't remember ever hearing that bitterness in her voice, not even when she talked about the reason she became a blitzer. But even though she was still sitting the same way, nothing about her face looked childish at all. It looked more like her mask--sharp and hard and cold.
She clenched a fist. "I don't know, Linna. I just don't know anymore. I still don't even believe there's a way for us to get out of here. And even if there is, now we know there's no way to destroy Sin. We'll be trapped forever. We'll fight it without hope until we die."
"I don't believe that!"
I must have yelled the words, because she finally looked up and stared at me. Slowly, I counted to ten and took the two deep breaths, just the way Rin had taught me. "Maybe I'm lying to myself, but there has to be a way," I said.
"I've lost my faith, Linna." She was trying to smile, but it wasn't working. There were deep circles under her eyes, and her skin was pale. Had she slept at all in the last two days?
"You don't need faith," I told her. "Yevonites, Al Bhed, Ronso, Guado, Hypello...you know what makes us different from Sin?"
She shook her head. "Because we're fighting for a reason, Miyu," I said. "We're fighting to protect people we care about. We're fighting to hold on to our memories. We're fighting because we want our lives to mean something. We're fighting because we have no other choice. And we're going to win because we have to. There's nothing else we can do."
ieyui
nobomeno
renmiri
yojyuyogo
hasatekanae
kutamae
"Whaa--?" I started. Miyu's glove shot up in my face, just the one hand, to silence me. She threw her head back and listened with her eyes closed.
"The Hymn of the Fayth," she whispered. "Someone's singing it."
And I could hear it now too. It wasn't just one person, though. It sounded like hundreds, coming from above us and ringing all around us. The cave walls echoed.
ieyui
nobomeno
renmiri
yojyuyogo
hasatekanae
kutamae
Flash--and I remembered the airship. The old woman with the too-bright eyes. The missles. The inferno. Cradling Naaga. Crying. Twenty, thirty voices, singing the hymn of a false god we'd never held sacred.
Al Bhed know what the words of the Hymn mean. "Pray now, for Yu Yevon, who will not go away. For the sake of prosperity, dream now, the Fayths of Yevon." Even knowing that, we've always sung it at life-changing events. The destruction of my Home, and the Homes before it. Weddings. Births. Funerals. The Hymn of the Fayth is a part of Spira's history, and the Al Bhed are a part of Spira.
And Spira was singing now. Miyu and I both realized it at the same time. It seemed like there was no other way we could have heard it from where we were unless the whole world was singing. Later I realized we'd probably been under Bevelle. I could picture those red brick walkways flooded with the thousands upon thousands of people in that city, singing as they watched that Al Bhed airship taking on Sin.
Because that, although we didn't know it until later, was what was happening. Miles above us, my leader and my ex-boyfriend and my little sister's friend and my blitz captains and Spira's last hope were all looking Sin right in the eye for the last time.
ieyui
nobomeno
renmiri
yojyuyogo
hasatekanae
kutamae
I wish I could have been there. I wish mine could have been the hands that struck it its fatal blow. I wish I could have said goodbye to Tidus. I wish I could have avenged the deaths of my parents, made my mother proud for once.
But all I could do was sing.
*****
For a sec there, it was like we were in a different world. The voices from aboveground were still echoing around us, and Miyu and I were just there, all alone with the fiends. She was crouched on the tiny ledge, I was still treading water, and we were both singing that hymn. I keep trying to describe what it was like, but I can't--neither English nor Al Bhed has the words I'd need to make you feel what I felt that day. It was...the fiercest sound I've ever heard. It could have been a battle cry, and in a way I could probably call it that. But there was so much pain in it, and, in a way...hope.
Maybe you had to be there.
But when it was all over, I felt like something had gone out of me. I leaned my head on the ledge again, and Miyu and I just looked at each other.
"I want to see the new millennium dawn on a world without Sin," she whispered.
I agreed so strongly I didn't even punch her for the cliche.
**********
Translations:
"Zaaw, oy ehcahcedeja sunuh, dryd fyc csynd." - "Jeez, ya insensitive moron, that was smart."
I used the lyrics to the Hymn of the Fayth in here, including the translation. This information was obtained from http://ffxpert.cartoonhit.com/lyrics.html. It was blatantly stolen without permission from said brilliant site, so I'd just like to note that none of this is my work and all credit should go to whoever figured that out at FFExpert. Thanks, guys. Please don't sue me. _;;
Author's Note: The narrator of this story is Al Bhed, and some dialogue and idiomatic phrases have not been translated into English. Translations of all Al Bhed phrases can be found at the end of the chapter in which they appear.
Green Eyes in Overdrive
by flame mage
round 14: Healer
**********
I did a double-take. My first thought was that I had to be hallucinating. There was no way I'd just heard Jassu say something. Then I realized that if I was going to bother to hallucinate, it would make more sense to imagine Bickson or Naaga, who I wanted to see even more. Having established that I probably wasn't crazy, I braced myself and looked.
"Jassu! You're alive!" I gasped.
He looked offended. "You losin' it, Cap'n? A'course I'm alive. We were just tryin' to figure out a way to get that sucker when you did it for us."
"Who's 'we'?" Reppi asked again, in the same tone of voice with which she'd asked me. I got a flash of deja vu. For once, Naida just looked on silently. She was still tending to Zalitz, who was conscious and sucking air hard now.
"All the rest of us, ya?" Letty said from behind us. "Good ta see ya, Cap'n. That sister a'yours's been pretty worried."
"Ahh, I wasn't," Jassu said lazily. "Cap'n LinLin can get herself outta anythin'."
"Where are we?" Naida piped up, already playing hardball.
"The Via Purifico," the two Aurochs answered together. Then Letty continued, "The two a'us've been down here 'bout...what, Jass, four days now, ya? Your sister and the Crusader and that idiot Goer showed up a couple days later. We got kinda a camp set up a couple caves back, but until today we hadn't gone this far--weren't really sure we could take that thing on. We're hopin' there's an exit out this--" He stopped. "'Zzat Reppi?!"
"You just now noticed, child?" Reppi asked. "Lord, how can you play blitzball with eyes like that?"
Jassu blurted out, "But--but--you're dead."
The Spiral goalie laughed. "It'd take more'n a couple priests to kill me, boy. I've been up there--" she cocked her head toward the cliff "--for a couple years now."
"Hey, guys," I started. "This is great and all, but can we do it at your camp? Zalitz is still in bad shape. He'd better rest up--cred, we'd all better rest up while we can--and then we'll see if there's an exit this way."
The two Aurochs exchanged glances. Then Letty said, "You got it, Cap'n," and started off.
*****
We swam for several minutes through several caves that all looked alike. Letty and Jassu led the way, Naida--who was under the drastically mistaken impression that they cared--was following about half a foot behind them ranting about how cold the water was and how she missed her poor darling Aniki, and Reppi and I brought up the rear with Zalitz in tow. Like servants.
After a while, the guys stopped in front of a green wall. When I looked closely, I saw that it wasn't a wall; it was a thick net of seagrasses woven together. Stuck into the grasses were dozens of sharpened rocks. Naida sucked in her breath and drew back.
"Here it is, Cap'n," Jassu announced listlessly. "Home sweet frickin' home."
"The net?" Naida asked.
Jassu shook his head. "Look behind it."
I found a gap between two reeds where there weren't any rocks and peeped through. On the other side of the net, I could see a smallish cave that looked exactly like every other cave we'd gone through. 'Home sweet frickin' home' looked cold and damp and not too comfortable. Also, it was completely underwater. I was having a hard time figuring out what made this natural dump even slightly habitable.
Letty must have read my mind, because he asked, "We got patches of seaweed growing on the cave wall. Those're our beds. We tied 'em together so we could strap ourselves in--seatbelts like you guys got in your machina. We sleep like that."
"Letty made it up," Jassu explained. Letty's tanned face flushed and he waved it off. The guard continued, "We eat the seaweed too. For a coupla days we didn't eat anything, but...well...ya get hungry enough, ya?"
"How do you keep the fiends away?" Reppi asked.
"At first we just fought 'em whenever they came by, but when the womenfolk showed up we figured we needed a better way. We made the nets outta the seaweed and chipped off bits of rock to weave in. Fiends can break through 'em easily, but most of 'em don't wanna get anywhere near those rocks. We've been okay for the most part. Hey, kid," he called, "Open the gate for a minute already , ya? It's us."
"Hang on already!" griped a familiar voice that would've made my breath catch in my throat if I'd been breathing. For the last few minutes, we'd been completely underwater, with no room to come up for air. Given the way Zalitz was looking, I decided we'd better get some soon.
A small hand with a half-glove on and bright purple fingernails cautiously pulled the net aside and a face looked through. Then the entire net was dropped to the cave floor and Naaga shot through it like a cannon, tightening her arms around my neck until she nearly choked me. "Linnie!" she cried.
Bubbles streamed out of her mouth and into my face. My eyes started burning inside my goggles, and I realized I was probably crying. "Naaga!" I think I yelled back as I crunched her ribcage. "Are you okay? Did those jerks lay a hand on you?"
"Nah, I'm fine, Linnie," she replied cheerfully. "The seaweed tastes bad, but I'm not hurt at all. I think maybe the one guard felt kinda sorry for me--he said I reminded him of his daughter, and he didn't push me in like he did Miyu and Bickson. I'm kinda worried about Miyu, though. She doesn't talk much. I think she's really sad."
"The kid's right," Letty agreed. "That Glory lady's been really down ever since she showed up. You think you can talk to her?"
"I can try."
Reppi waved a hand at me. "Go ahead, then. We'll hold down the fort here."
"See how the gate on the udda' side'a the cave unlatches, Cap'n?" Jassu asked. "She's over there. When you want to come back, just holler, ya?"
*****
This cave had a grand total of one ledge, and it was occupied by Miyu. She was sitting with her arms wrapped around her legs, hugging them to her chest. She looked like a little girl, the way Naaga did when she was trying to be cute and make me feel sorry for her so I wouldn't yell at her about not doing the dishes. Except Miyu definitely wasn't putting on an act. She really seemed lost.
"Hey," I said softly, swimming over and chinning myself on the ledge. "You okay?"
She didn't say anything. I could've kicked myself. Zaaw, oy ehcahcedeja sunuh, dryd fyc csynd. "Sorry. Stupid question."
"No." She shook her head slowly, not looking at me. "I am still a bit...shaken. It...it is..." Abruptly she stopped and something hardened in her voice. "I'm tired of being so formal. It sucks, Linna. We were betrayed. I threw away my whole life for this...this shit!"
I stared at her. I couldn't remember ever hearing her curse. I couldn't remember ever hearing that bitterness in her voice, not even when she talked about the reason she became a blitzer. But even though she was still sitting the same way, nothing about her face looked childish at all. It looked more like her mask--sharp and hard and cold.
She clenched a fist. "I don't know, Linna. I just don't know anymore. I still don't even believe there's a way for us to get out of here. And even if there is, now we know there's no way to destroy Sin. We'll be trapped forever. We'll fight it without hope until we die."
"I don't believe that!"
I must have yelled the words, because she finally looked up and stared at me. Slowly, I counted to ten and took the two deep breaths, just the way Rin had taught me. "Maybe I'm lying to myself, but there has to be a way," I said.
"I've lost my faith, Linna." She was trying to smile, but it wasn't working. There were deep circles under her eyes, and her skin was pale. Had she slept at all in the last two days?
"You don't need faith," I told her. "Yevonites, Al Bhed, Ronso, Guado, Hypello...you know what makes us different from Sin?"
She shook her head. "Because we're fighting for a reason, Miyu," I said. "We're fighting to protect people we care about. We're fighting to hold on to our memories. We're fighting because we want our lives to mean something. We're fighting because we have no other choice. And we're going to win because we have to. There's nothing else we can do."
ieyui
nobomeno
renmiri
yojyuyogo
hasatekanae
kutamae
"Whaa--?" I started. Miyu's glove shot up in my face, just the one hand, to silence me. She threw her head back and listened with her eyes closed.
"The Hymn of the Fayth," she whispered. "Someone's singing it."
And I could hear it now too. It wasn't just one person, though. It sounded like hundreds, coming from above us and ringing all around us. The cave walls echoed.
ieyui
nobomeno
renmiri
yojyuyogo
hasatekanae
kutamae
Flash--and I remembered the airship. The old woman with the too-bright eyes. The missles. The inferno. Cradling Naaga. Crying. Twenty, thirty voices, singing the hymn of a false god we'd never held sacred.
Al Bhed know what the words of the Hymn mean. "Pray now, for Yu Yevon, who will not go away. For the sake of prosperity, dream now, the Fayths of Yevon." Even knowing that, we've always sung it at life-changing events. The destruction of my Home, and the Homes before it. Weddings. Births. Funerals. The Hymn of the Fayth is a part of Spira's history, and the Al Bhed are a part of Spira.
And Spira was singing now. Miyu and I both realized it at the same time. It seemed like there was no other way we could have heard it from where we were unless the whole world was singing. Later I realized we'd probably been under Bevelle. I could picture those red brick walkways flooded with the thousands upon thousands of people in that city, singing as they watched that Al Bhed airship taking on Sin.
Because that, although we didn't know it until later, was what was happening. Miles above us, my leader and my ex-boyfriend and my little sister's friend and my blitz captains and Spira's last hope were all looking Sin right in the eye for the last time.
ieyui
nobomeno
renmiri
yojyuyogo
hasatekanae
kutamae
I wish I could have been there. I wish mine could have been the hands that struck it its fatal blow. I wish I could have said goodbye to Tidus. I wish I could have avenged the deaths of my parents, made my mother proud for once.
But all I could do was sing.
*****
For a sec there, it was like we were in a different world. The voices from aboveground were still echoing around us, and Miyu and I were just there, all alone with the fiends. She was crouched on the tiny ledge, I was still treading water, and we were both singing that hymn. I keep trying to describe what it was like, but I can't--neither English nor Al Bhed has the words I'd need to make you feel what I felt that day. It was...the fiercest sound I've ever heard. It could have been a battle cry, and in a way I could probably call it that. But there was so much pain in it, and, in a way...hope.
Maybe you had to be there.
But when it was all over, I felt like something had gone out of me. I leaned my head on the ledge again, and Miyu and I just looked at each other.
"I want to see the new millennium dawn on a world without Sin," she whispered.
I agreed so strongly I didn't even punch her for the cliche.
**********
Translations:
"Zaaw, oy ehcahcedeja sunuh, dryd fyc csynd." - "Jeez, ya insensitive moron, that was smart."