Prologue:

My Paradox

Love.

It's riveting...just ruminatively musing on how much power this infinitesimal word could incorporate. This four lettered word could make the strongest, tremble; the weakest, strong; the rough, gentle...Plausibly, this "word" could hold the salvation and unconditional healing for this world, if not be it's apocalypse. Though it's modesty is what makes it a cryptic mystery.  Its vast force always unseen but one can sense it like the calm before a storm. It's alarming yet electrifying all at the same time.  Even the greatest scholars wouldn't be able to tell you where the pleasure started and where the pain ended.

Deducting what this fairly small parole of emotion could do, I found my thoughts thumbing through memories of - surprisingly - many people.  I realized as I exhaled voices, faces, places, from the past...that each of them at least shared at most one trait when they were in love: each of them had been driven to make the impossible, actuality. Actually, just making the slightest reference to the word "impossible" in their presence would leave them baffled at its meaning. "Impossible" in their definition, was just a series of temporary nightmares of words that couldn't be said, dreams that couldn't be consummated, and things couldn't of been done. It seemed that "love" had given them untrammeled, supernatural strength that granted them to live the fullest.  Perhaps, even the emotion educated them how to fight. They are even others whose very existence are based on that simple, dry word.

I'm not sure whether to conclude that it is utterly pitiful to choose to live like that, or maybe I am missing something that really is that grand. Who knows?

Judging by the company I keep, however, people assume I was erudite woman of such matters. I am working with someone who has come in contact with this supposively "intoxicating" emotion. We've worked together around...about two years now? I'm even witnessing her right now, dancing and singing on the top of Celsius' deck for the amusement of Brother and Rikku for the...hm, hundredth time? She's been captivated by that four-lettered feeling. And it's because of that four-lettered feeling that she's here. She did not join because of the sole purpose to hunt spheres, but to hunt for something less tangible. And what would be so important to search and sacrifice a chance for a thrilling escapade and opportunity? Why, love, of course.

I always treasured the feeling I get being right at the tip of the deck. This feeling of being on the edge.  Being barely separated from the blue unknown. To feel the rushing air engulf me, take me over, twirl me and hold me like an elegant dancer. The fiery adrenaline flow from head to toe in my body leaving me intoxicated and screaming for more.  This was my reason for coming to the Gullwings. It was this freedom of flying I yearned to experience so much. This freedom, and for the truth. So diametrical from Yuna's rationality of being a sphere hunter.

My free hands soon find their familiar place: crossed on my chest as I looked ahead into the night. Musical notes invisibly flowed like a stream behind me. The music carried off into the evening allowing the night to have symphonic wings. The stars sparkled like scattered crushed angel dust on black velvet. The moon, a pale white pearl, hovered among the wispy clouds as Celsius plowed through them without thought. This was heaven for me. This was peace on earth here.

Yuna once told me that love was connatural to flying. It had come up in one of those tiresome nonsensical explanations of Yuna's purpose of this other "journey". I don't think I'll ever get it.  She had told me repetitively that she was searching for her love.   That she was willing to abandon anything and everything just for his return.  Her passion was so extreme, that she even swore to tear Spira apart for him...The Spira she had been so compliant to die for at one point. But, what my question was: why did he depart in the first place? One could safely cogitate that if someone left you, that they would come back if they truly loved you. Even when Yuna couldn't pin the right words to support herself, Rikku would give it a shot through her own eyes. In the end, it was no use. I still didn't understand why someone would go through such peril and trouble over just one man. A simple, normal man, no less.

Ah, why bother to even interpret their reasoning? What's the point of even trying to figure this out? I have a job. I have a mission. I have a sword. This is all I need for me to find my goal in life. This is all I need to calculate and understand. So why am I all caught up in it now?

My face turned over my shoulder, the corner of my eye seeing flashes of a vibrant orange and a delicious blue hue. Through the hazy lights and the blaring music, I could see Rikku and Yuna now both dancing. Jigging to their own personal beats, singing with arms around each other's shoulders laughing without a care in the world. Their smiles enamoring boy scout Buddy and the bumbling Brother. Their movements cheery and upbeat, swerving their hips and waving their arms around. I wonder if they know they're humiliating themselves? Well, whatever makes them happy.

Swiftly I turn my body, my black high heels clicking on the cold metal of the floor. I begin to walk off the deck and towards the elevator. I was never much of a dancer, so I was hoping that I would be able to escape before the dancing duo would ask for a triplet bolero. I knew I would one day have to face it though. Seeing how much this dancing ritual will become a habit after Brother had first seen it, and shamelessly, will become addicted to it.

One step before I entered the elevator, I heard Rikku's shrill voice call out.

"Hey, Paine, where are you going!!?"

I freeze and don't turn around. My body stiff yet my exterior cool.  "I'm going to bed," I dryly answered. "I've got a lot of things on my mind." Something that was partially true but partially false. I did have something on my mind but I preferred I didn't. I was hoping that sleep would erase it by morning.

"Aw, come on, Paine, don't you want to dance?"

"No," I said deadpanned and cold. I stepped into the elevator with haste and pressed the button to the cabin.  I was hoping Rikku wouldn't try anything stupid...like jump off the stage and drag me towards the resplendent lights and muscians.  She sometimes would get crazy like that.

I watched as doors began to close in.  Grey steel doors separated me from the iridescent world of music to the real world.  Through the slits of the monochromatic doors, I could see glints of - to what it seemed to be - a disappointed crew.

Hm.

Love.

A four-lettered word that remained one of the few paradoxes I wouldn't ever empathize. Oh well, its no loss, right?

I closed my eyes to the now drowning melody.  The tasteful colored lights fading into a darkness that I was accostumed to.  Inside the iniquity of my previous thoughts, however, a dazzling smile appeared in my head as some kind of interference. 

Mouthing mysterious words...an answer, maybe?  Answer or not...the words he said was a phrase that I desperately needed to hear...Somehow...maybe...he would one day say it.  Anguish struck me and I immediately banished the sentiment into the shadows of my mind once more. I reminded myself sullenly: what is dead, remains dead.