My note: to answer a question, you should take everything anyone says
with a grain of salt. I like playing with semantics and the meanings of
words sometimes. I still think this warrants a re-write, but for now I
think I'll just stick to finishing it.
Where Dreams End
14. Home's Hidden Fayth
Buffy rolled out of the way. A flurry of spiky metal balls slammed into the ground where she had just been.
Rikku had managed to clamber up on top of the mechanised monstrosity, claiming that, as an Al Bhed, she could take any machina apart. The huge machina was moving and shaking wildly, trying to get her off. "How're you doing up there?"
"It's a little difficult right now!" Rikku shouted back, sounding annoyed and hanging on for dear life.
"Tell me about it," Buffy responded, using the flat of her sword to deflect away the long-armed punches that the war machina threw her way. She lashed out in retaliation, her sword leaving a long rent in the machina's armour.
The resulting spasm in the machina was enough to dislodge its unwelcome Al Bhed rider. Rikku was thrown across the room, into Buffy. The two girls slid across the floor in a painful heap, a tangled mess of limbs. Miraculously, Buffy managed to hold onto her sword.
"Ouch," Rikku groaned.
"Move!" Buffy said urgently, her eyes going wide. She shoved Rikku out of the way, rolling in the other direction herself. The stone floor where they'd just been splintered under the weight of a heavy spiked fist.
"I've had just about enough of this," Rikku said, her voice sounding a little petulant.
"So let's do something about it," Buffy said, kick-flipping to her feet. She brought her sword around to a readily defensible position.
"Right!" Rikku nodded, springing to her feet. The Al Bhed girl gasped as Buffy shot forward, bringing her sword around in a brutal arc that separated the machina from one of its arms in a shower of sparks and the scream of shearing, twisting metal.
"Hey," Rikku said. "How come you didn't do that all along?"
"You said you could handle it," Buffy argued. "And I quote, 'I can take care of that machina, lickety-split.' It's still there, you know?"
"It's not like the others we've excavated," Rikku complained, frowning. She jumped out of the way just in time to avoid a volley of heavy metal spiked balls, fired by the war machine. "It's more complicated. It's gonna take time."
"I think," Buffy said, ducking under the machine's other arm as it swung at her. "I'll just take this tin can apart my own way. If it's all the same to you."
Buffy thrust her crimson blade into the machina's armpit, and wrenched it around, twisting the blade to inflict maximum damage to the machine's internal workings. The arm seized violently, then died, leaving this machina with only one weapon: it's cannon.
"You okay?" Tidus asked Yuna, noticing that she'd gone completely silent, blushing fiercely.
"He… he asked me to marry him!" Yuna breathed quietly. Tidus glanced over at Seymour, then back to his Summoner, a questioning look on his face.
"You serious?" He asked.
He was having trouble wrapping his mind around this. There was so much about Spira that he didn't understand. There was so much about the Summoner and her pilgrimage that he did not understand.
And now this? It didn't make any sense! What was Seymour playing at?
"You know what Yuna must do," Auron said. His statement lingered halfway between threat and question, and hung in the uncertain air a moment.
"Of course," said Seymour, nodding. "Lady Yuna – no, all Summoners are charged with bringing peace to Spira. But this means more than just defeating Sin. She must ease the suffering of all Spira. She must be a leader to the people. I proposed to Lady Yuna as a Maester of Yevon."
"Spira is no playhouse," Auron said gruffly. It was clear that he disagreed with this course of action, though why he disagreed remained uncertain. "A moment's diversion may amuse an audience, but it changes nothing."
"Even so," Seymour argued, his voice deceptively soft. "The actors play their parts." He turned to Yuna. "There's no need to answer right away. Please, think it over."
"We will do so, then," said Auron. "We leave."
Seymour bowed his head slightly. "Lady Yuna. I await your favourable reply." He turned to Auron, frowning slightly. "Why are you still here, sir?"
Auron said nothing, but shot Seymour a questioning look. Tidus had to wonder what it was that Seymour meant by that. "I beg your pardon," the Maester said. "We guado are keen to the scent of the Farplane."
Tidus leaned over towards Auron, sniffing, trying to figure out what exactly Seymour smelled. Auron just shoved him aside, annoyed. It was probably a good thing Buffy wasn't there, Tidus thought to himself, because she would have got a good laugh at his expense.
The Zanarkand Blitzer found his eyes wandering back towards the portrait, towards Buffy's face. She'd been a part of every High Summoner's pilgrimage, except Yuna's dad's. That meant she'd been instrumental in defeating Sin more than once. He found himself going back to her words, her accusation.
"I didn't want to deal with the consequences," Tidus murmured to himself.
"What's that?" Wakka asked.
"It's what Buffy said," Tidus explained, giving his friend and fellow guardian a deeply thoughtful look. "She said she didn't want to deal with the consequences of beating Sin. She said I didn't know what I was talking about."
"Ya," Wakka said, nodding his head.
Tidus found himself turning back towards the portrait. "This… kinda puts things in perspective," Tidus murmured. "If she's been around for all this time, then she has to understand stuff like this a little better than me or you. What if she's right?"
"We all gotta do the best we can, ya?" Wakka suggested, giving Tidus a nervous grin.
"What were the consequences she was talking about?" Tidus asked, though the question was directed more to himself than to Wakka. "Maybe she knows something we don't, you know? Maybe we should listen to her?"
"We'd have to know where she is, first," Auron put in.
"Well, you said she was with an Al Bhed," Tidus said. "Maybe we should go looking for them?"
"Go lookin' for those heathens?" Wakka asked, outraged by the mere suggestion. "You outta your mind?"
"Wakka, they're not all bad," Tidus said. When he'd first arrived in Spira, he'd been alone somewhere cold. An Al Bhed girl named Rikku rescued him from that, so they couldn't all be bad, could they?
"They ignore the teachings!" Wakka argued.
"Nevertheless, if we want to find Buffy, it seems we must first find the Al Bhed," Lulu reasoned coolly. Yuna nodded her agreement quietly.
Maybe this was a good thing, Tidus thought to himself. Maybe Wakka would see that the Al Bhed weren't bad people, that the teachings of Yevon were not absolute. And maybe the shoopuf would learn to fly…
There were nothing but spare parts left, by the time Buffy finished with the machina. She kicked one of the smaller parts half-heartedly, sending it skipping away across the floor.
"I wonder who built this place," Rikku said, kneeling to examine one of the larger fragments of the machina.
"Why's that important?" Buffy asked.
Now that the war machina was out of the way, she had a better opportunity to look around the room. Like the room they'd previously occupied, this one appeared to be circular. She half expected a door to slide open, now that they'd beaten the machina which had obviously been set there to test them.
No such door appeared.
"Now what?" Rikku wondered.
"Damned if I know," Buffy responded, giving her friend an easy shrug of her shoulders.
"Help me move this," Rikku said, springing energetically to her feet. She ran over to the largest piece left of the machina, in roughly the centre of the room. Grabbing one edge, she tried to shift it, but the machine was simply too heavy.
"Okay," Buffy said, moving to join her. "How come?"
"I think I saw something underneath," Rikku explained. "Before you trashed it and it fell down, you know?" Buffy took hold of one side of the machina's remains and Rikku grabbed the other side, and, together, they managed to move it a little way.
"Hey, you're right," Buffy said, kneeling down to examine the find a little closer.
"Told you!" Rikku crowed victoriously.
"I wonder…" Buffy muttered to herself. There was a hole in the floor, well, not so much a hole as a slot, set into a reflective crimson metal plate. It was six-sided, roughly one and a half inches by half an inch.
Buffy unsheathed her sword, that same weapon she'd recovered from Xander's Cloister of Trials. The blade seemed to match the dimensions of the slot, so she slowly slid the weapon in. When she'd pushed it in all the way up to the hilt, there was a metal clank, like something being unlocked.
The entire floor trembled, and for a moment Buffy thought she'd activated some kind of trap.
"What's going on?" Rikku asked, looking around worriedly.
"I'm not sure," Buffy responded.
"Why'd you put the sword in?" Rikku demanded, her voice nervous. "All the stories are about pulling the sword out of the stone!"
"You guys got that one here too, huh?" Buffy asked conversationally. A brilliant symbol burned its way onto the floor. It seemed to suck all the light from the room. There was nothing except for the light and the two girls.
Whoever built Xander's place had to have had a hand in this place. There was this weird pulling sensation. I think I passed out again. That's no way to travel.
Rikku was shaking her when Buffy woke up again. The Slayer slowly sat up, groaning. She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the stars that seemed to dance in front of her eyes.
"Were you expecting that?" Rikku asked, a hard edge to her young voice.
"Not really," Buffy responded. She blinked, taking in her surroundings for the first time. They were in a large circular chamber. The walls were of smoothly polished white marble, and there was writing chiselled into them, words that Buffy could understand, that she could read. Her one experience of Yevon's temples led her to believe that they used those strange symbols, rather than real words. "I'm guessing wherever we were going, we arrived?"
"Yeah," said Rikku. "I never knew there was a place like this underneath our noses."
"Yeah, well, there's something like this on the road between Luca and Djose too," said Buffy. "I'm guessing nobody knew about that either."
And there it was, the fayth which slept in the centre of the room. Buffy found herself pulled towards it, drawn. It had to be that same force which drew her down to this hidden location.
"Willow."
Where Dreams End
14. Home's Hidden Fayth
Buffy rolled out of the way. A flurry of spiky metal balls slammed into the ground where she had just been.
Rikku had managed to clamber up on top of the mechanised monstrosity, claiming that, as an Al Bhed, she could take any machina apart. The huge machina was moving and shaking wildly, trying to get her off. "How're you doing up there?"
"It's a little difficult right now!" Rikku shouted back, sounding annoyed and hanging on for dear life.
"Tell me about it," Buffy responded, using the flat of her sword to deflect away the long-armed punches that the war machina threw her way. She lashed out in retaliation, her sword leaving a long rent in the machina's armour.
The resulting spasm in the machina was enough to dislodge its unwelcome Al Bhed rider. Rikku was thrown across the room, into Buffy. The two girls slid across the floor in a painful heap, a tangled mess of limbs. Miraculously, Buffy managed to hold onto her sword.
"Ouch," Rikku groaned.
"Move!" Buffy said urgently, her eyes going wide. She shoved Rikku out of the way, rolling in the other direction herself. The stone floor where they'd just been splintered under the weight of a heavy spiked fist.
"I've had just about enough of this," Rikku said, her voice sounding a little petulant.
"So let's do something about it," Buffy said, kick-flipping to her feet. She brought her sword around to a readily defensible position.
"Right!" Rikku nodded, springing to her feet. The Al Bhed girl gasped as Buffy shot forward, bringing her sword around in a brutal arc that separated the machina from one of its arms in a shower of sparks and the scream of shearing, twisting metal.
"Hey," Rikku said. "How come you didn't do that all along?"
"You said you could handle it," Buffy argued. "And I quote, 'I can take care of that machina, lickety-split.' It's still there, you know?"
"It's not like the others we've excavated," Rikku complained, frowning. She jumped out of the way just in time to avoid a volley of heavy metal spiked balls, fired by the war machine. "It's more complicated. It's gonna take time."
"I think," Buffy said, ducking under the machine's other arm as it swung at her. "I'll just take this tin can apart my own way. If it's all the same to you."
Buffy thrust her crimson blade into the machina's armpit, and wrenched it around, twisting the blade to inflict maximum damage to the machine's internal workings. The arm seized violently, then died, leaving this machina with only one weapon: it's cannon.
"You okay?" Tidus asked Yuna, noticing that she'd gone completely silent, blushing fiercely.
"He… he asked me to marry him!" Yuna breathed quietly. Tidus glanced over at Seymour, then back to his Summoner, a questioning look on his face.
"You serious?" He asked.
He was having trouble wrapping his mind around this. There was so much about Spira that he didn't understand. There was so much about the Summoner and her pilgrimage that he did not understand.
And now this? It didn't make any sense! What was Seymour playing at?
"You know what Yuna must do," Auron said. His statement lingered halfway between threat and question, and hung in the uncertain air a moment.
"Of course," said Seymour, nodding. "Lady Yuna – no, all Summoners are charged with bringing peace to Spira. But this means more than just defeating Sin. She must ease the suffering of all Spira. She must be a leader to the people. I proposed to Lady Yuna as a Maester of Yevon."
"Spira is no playhouse," Auron said gruffly. It was clear that he disagreed with this course of action, though why he disagreed remained uncertain. "A moment's diversion may amuse an audience, but it changes nothing."
"Even so," Seymour argued, his voice deceptively soft. "The actors play their parts." He turned to Yuna. "There's no need to answer right away. Please, think it over."
"We will do so, then," said Auron. "We leave."
Seymour bowed his head slightly. "Lady Yuna. I await your favourable reply." He turned to Auron, frowning slightly. "Why are you still here, sir?"
Auron said nothing, but shot Seymour a questioning look. Tidus had to wonder what it was that Seymour meant by that. "I beg your pardon," the Maester said. "We guado are keen to the scent of the Farplane."
Tidus leaned over towards Auron, sniffing, trying to figure out what exactly Seymour smelled. Auron just shoved him aside, annoyed. It was probably a good thing Buffy wasn't there, Tidus thought to himself, because she would have got a good laugh at his expense.
The Zanarkand Blitzer found his eyes wandering back towards the portrait, towards Buffy's face. She'd been a part of every High Summoner's pilgrimage, except Yuna's dad's. That meant she'd been instrumental in defeating Sin more than once. He found himself going back to her words, her accusation.
"I didn't want to deal with the consequences," Tidus murmured to himself.
"What's that?" Wakka asked.
"It's what Buffy said," Tidus explained, giving his friend and fellow guardian a deeply thoughtful look. "She said she didn't want to deal with the consequences of beating Sin. She said I didn't know what I was talking about."
"Ya," Wakka said, nodding his head.
Tidus found himself turning back towards the portrait. "This… kinda puts things in perspective," Tidus murmured. "If she's been around for all this time, then she has to understand stuff like this a little better than me or you. What if she's right?"
"We all gotta do the best we can, ya?" Wakka suggested, giving Tidus a nervous grin.
"What were the consequences she was talking about?" Tidus asked, though the question was directed more to himself than to Wakka. "Maybe she knows something we don't, you know? Maybe we should listen to her?"
"We'd have to know where she is, first," Auron put in.
"Well, you said she was with an Al Bhed," Tidus said. "Maybe we should go looking for them?"
"Go lookin' for those heathens?" Wakka asked, outraged by the mere suggestion. "You outta your mind?"
"Wakka, they're not all bad," Tidus said. When he'd first arrived in Spira, he'd been alone somewhere cold. An Al Bhed girl named Rikku rescued him from that, so they couldn't all be bad, could they?
"They ignore the teachings!" Wakka argued.
"Nevertheless, if we want to find Buffy, it seems we must first find the Al Bhed," Lulu reasoned coolly. Yuna nodded her agreement quietly.
Maybe this was a good thing, Tidus thought to himself. Maybe Wakka would see that the Al Bhed weren't bad people, that the teachings of Yevon were not absolute. And maybe the shoopuf would learn to fly…
There were nothing but spare parts left, by the time Buffy finished with the machina. She kicked one of the smaller parts half-heartedly, sending it skipping away across the floor.
"I wonder who built this place," Rikku said, kneeling to examine one of the larger fragments of the machina.
"Why's that important?" Buffy asked.
Now that the war machina was out of the way, she had a better opportunity to look around the room. Like the room they'd previously occupied, this one appeared to be circular. She half expected a door to slide open, now that they'd beaten the machina which had obviously been set there to test them.
No such door appeared.
"Now what?" Rikku wondered.
"Damned if I know," Buffy responded, giving her friend an easy shrug of her shoulders.
"Help me move this," Rikku said, springing energetically to her feet. She ran over to the largest piece left of the machina, in roughly the centre of the room. Grabbing one edge, she tried to shift it, but the machine was simply too heavy.
"Okay," Buffy said, moving to join her. "How come?"
"I think I saw something underneath," Rikku explained. "Before you trashed it and it fell down, you know?" Buffy took hold of one side of the machina's remains and Rikku grabbed the other side, and, together, they managed to move it a little way.
"Hey, you're right," Buffy said, kneeling down to examine the find a little closer.
"Told you!" Rikku crowed victoriously.
"I wonder…" Buffy muttered to herself. There was a hole in the floor, well, not so much a hole as a slot, set into a reflective crimson metal plate. It was six-sided, roughly one and a half inches by half an inch.
Buffy unsheathed her sword, that same weapon she'd recovered from Xander's Cloister of Trials. The blade seemed to match the dimensions of the slot, so she slowly slid the weapon in. When she'd pushed it in all the way up to the hilt, there was a metal clank, like something being unlocked.
The entire floor trembled, and for a moment Buffy thought she'd activated some kind of trap.
"What's going on?" Rikku asked, looking around worriedly.
"I'm not sure," Buffy responded.
"Why'd you put the sword in?" Rikku demanded, her voice nervous. "All the stories are about pulling the sword out of the stone!"
"You guys got that one here too, huh?" Buffy asked conversationally. A brilliant symbol burned its way onto the floor. It seemed to suck all the light from the room. There was nothing except for the light and the two girls.
Whoever built Xander's place had to have had a hand in this place. There was this weird pulling sensation. I think I passed out again. That's no way to travel.
Rikku was shaking her when Buffy woke up again. The Slayer slowly sat up, groaning. She shook her head, trying to rid herself of the stars that seemed to dance in front of her eyes.
"Were you expecting that?" Rikku asked, a hard edge to her young voice.
"Not really," Buffy responded. She blinked, taking in her surroundings for the first time. They were in a large circular chamber. The walls were of smoothly polished white marble, and there was writing chiselled into them, words that Buffy could understand, that she could read. Her one experience of Yevon's temples led her to believe that they used those strange symbols, rather than real words. "I'm guessing wherever we were going, we arrived?"
"Yeah," said Rikku. "I never knew there was a place like this underneath our noses."
"Yeah, well, there's something like this on the road between Luca and Djose too," said Buffy. "I'm guessing nobody knew about that either."
And there it was, the fayth which slept in the centre of the room. Buffy found herself pulled towards it, drawn. It had to be that same force which drew her down to this hidden location.
"Willow."