**
Part Five: Temporal Convergence of Hypnogogic Regressions
**
The stink of discharged machina weaponry, weaponry that which Yuna had been raised to abhor, and made her want to choke on more than the smell, had filled the air. It was like some sort of burning mineral, sulphur, she thought, as was used to create matches. She had been sitting exhausted atop a low rock, burdened with the knowledge that, as a Summoner, she would be required to send the souls that lay within the mangled corpses littering the beach. They hadn't asked her to come yet, but she knew it was only a matter of time until they had straightened out the bodies, and cleared a path she could walk through.
So she sat, nursing her wounds, and staring over at the figure who stood at the very edge of the cliff, watching over the progress of the walking wounded as they tended to their comrades. What would the repercussions be for Seymour, she wondered. Would he be called to task by the other Maesters for supporting this action against Sin that had cost so many lives, for condoning an alliance with the Al-Bhed? What of Kinoc?
She could not say what lay within the minds of the Maesters, for she was not privy to such things.
As Lulu tightened the bandage around Yuna's leg, causing her to glance down, one of several spots in which Yuna had been injured by flying stone shards that had been thrown at her with the thrashings around of the great fiend that she, Auron and Seymour had destroyed. There were no healing potions or medicines to be found, Yuna having insisted that the mostly uninjured party give them to help those who lay on the beach, and she was too exhausted to heal herself with magic.
The Mushroom Rock Road, she had thought, was fascinating. The peculiar rock formations had caused her no end of interest as they had crossed paths and climbed to the tops of precipices, and in some part of her mind, she lamented the lack of education she had in what caused these rocks to shape this way. Thoughts of erosion and of vicious storms had crossed her mind.
Now whenever she thought of this Road, she would only see Sin, and see the death.
It only strengthened her resolve. Seymour had said she was not strong enough. She would become strong enough. She would become as strong as her father.
Lulu got to her feet to go and see to Wakka, who had apparently inhaled a mouthful of water (how he had done this was beyond Yuna) and was apparently not feeling very well in the aftermath. It left Yuna alone, and she stood, crossing over to the blue-haired man who watched the macabre scene on the beach below.
He looked at her as she approached, and his eyes flickered to her leg. He seemed somewhat tired himself; she knew he had been helping to mop up a few fiends left behind in Sin's wake, and he had been overexerting himself slightly, it seemed. He raised his hand.
She closed her eyes as a deliciously warm sensation swept over her. It was one she only usually encountered in the heat of battle, when she was too unnerved by the excitement in her veins to notice such things. The wash of blue-white light that rippled under her skin, and the smell of freshly cut grass invaded her senses.
"I did not need you to do that," she said, opening her eyes to look at Seymour, who had lowered his hand after casting the curative spell upon her. "There are others more in need of help than I."
"I disagree," Seymour said smoothly, and had said nothing further on the subject.
**
Lulu, after learning of Kimahri's intent to depart, and seeing him off with both Wakka and Yuna at the pier, had been making regular visits to Yuna's hut. The young woman had been refusing most company, and she would have been refusing to eat as well, had Lulu not been making a nuisance of herself, forcing her to eat and sitting in the hut so that there was at least someone else there to talk to.
Yuna had not availed herself of the offer, preferring to sequester herself within her room, apparently deep in thought. Lulu's only comfort was that there did not seem to be any recurrence of the strange tiredness that had plagued her. This had been the state of affairs now for several days.
Wakka, he had said, didn't know what to do for her. "She's a girl, Lu," he had told her. "She's my friend and like a little sister to me, ya? But I still don' know what to say, apart from what I said at the beach."
He had said he was there for her, that he'd miss Kimahri too, and that the blitzball team wanted to throw her a little party to cheer her up, so she should be ready for some terrible cooking. It had made Yuna smile for a moment, but it had faded quickly. She had shuffled back to the village looking despondent.
It was so totally out of character for Yuna that it made Lulu more than a little afraid. Not even when she thought she would give her life for Spira had Yuna been so sad. Lulu paused in tidying up the little kitchen of Yuna's, and now Yuna's alone, hut. Could it be the opposite, she wondered? Could living be what made Yuna so miserable?
She felt cold, and she nearly dropped the plate she held. A Summoner expected death. That was their goal. It was what they travelled for months to accomplish. Could it be...? Could it be that a Summoner desired death in some way? Could the prospect of living be so terrible?
Lulu shook her head sharply, saying "No!" aloud to convince herself of it. Yuna wasn't that sort of person, the sort to give up on something, especially not life. Lulu refused to believe it, and she would never let Yuna do such a thing anyway. Not now. Not when she didn't have to.
"Lulu? Who's there?"
Embarrassed, Lulu turned to face Yuna, who had poked her head out from behind the curtain. From the way Yuna's hair was mussed, she guessed that the younger woman had been sleeping when she had heard Lulu's utterance. "I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to disturb you."
"No, that's alright." Yuna stepped out from her room, still clad in a sleeping shift. It was well into mid-morning, but Yuna had apparently not awoken until Lulu had become loud. One more reason for Lulu to worry about her. "Strange dreams."
"Nightmares?" Lulu asked, striving for an unconcerned tone as she finished stacking plates.
"Memories," Yuna said, flattening her mouth before sitting down at the table, sighing as Lulu moved to make her tea and something to eat. "I'm not a child."
Lulu nodded as she poured water from a jug into the kettle. "Of course you're not," she said, plucking two mugs from a shelf, demonstrating her intention to share the tea with Yuna. Faced with this, Yuna relented, picking at the sleeve of her nightgown. Lulu bustled about in silence for a moment, settling plates and little fresh pastries on the table, as well as the mugs.
"Would you like honey?" Lulu asked solicitously, glancing over her shoulder at Yuna.
"No," Yuna said quietly.
Lulu blinked. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you liked it."
"I do. The healer said I shouldn't eat it."
Lulu blinked once more, feeling somewhat akin to an owl. "I see," she said neutrally, setting the teapot down on the table and pulling out a chair without another word, while Yuna attempted to shred a pastry with her fingers rather than eat it.
When Yuna finally annihilated the pastry that Lulu had been intending to claim for herself, she decided that perhaps a most direct tactic was called for.
"Is there something wrong?" she asked.
Yuna didn't glance up from the pastry. "Not at all, Lulu. I told you before."
"Ah," Lulu said, "So you did."
There was silence for another few minutes, occasionally broken by the sound of dying pastry, or Lulu's spoon as she stirred sweetening into her tea.
"Are you quite sure?" she asked.
"Yes!" Yuna bite out, rather harshly in Lulu's opinion.
"Because you do not seem well."
"I know myself, Lulu," Yuna said, frowning. "I am well."
Lulu nodded briskly. "In that case, perhaps you would not be disagreeable towards meeting the High Priest of Besaid Temple. He has heard of your statements regarding Sin and the Fayth, and wanted to have a chance to talk to you about the possibility-"
Lulu tried not to start at Yuna jumped to her feet, the chair banging to the floor in her rush to stand. Yuna had clenched her hands into fists, though she was clearly trying to relax them.
"I'm sorry, Lulu," she said finally, "I don't feel like tea this morning. And please pass my apologies to the Priest. I will not be meeting him today."
Yuna fled the hut, the flowers outside trampled noisily as she ran out. There were a few startled cries from the nearby villagers, presumably at seeing the High Summoner running out of her hut in her nightgown.
Lulu sipped her tea sanguinely. Ten minutes, she decided. She would allow Yuna ten minutes to collect her thoughts and then she would follow her.
**
As she stared at the path she had to descend, Lulu somewhat regretted allowing Yuna to get to her destination. She had never feared for Yuna's life; the fiends of Besaid were hardly of significance to a woman who had faced Sin and won. But Yuna, it seemed, had fled to the same place she had as a child, when something or someone had made her upset. And she had fled here precisely because of its inaccessibility.
Before the ruins of an old civilisation that made its presence tangibly felt on the road to the village, there were waterfalls, and further down the cliff there were outcroppings and caves that wove into the very rock of the island itself. There was a safe path, Lulu knew, that was startlingly free of rock slime and water, and let someone small hide underneath the lip of an outcropping, perfectly dry and protecting from all sight and sound.
It had been Yuna's secret place, until one day where the girl had lost track of the time and had fallen asleep in her little cubby-hole. Kimahri had worked most of the village into a panic when the girl had stumbled back, unaware of any reason she could have worried people. The next time Yuna had disappeared, Lulu had followed her and found the secret place that the girl was fond of.
But she had never tried to get down there herself.
Lulu sighed. She was perfectly agile, as she had to be to avoid some of the quicker fiends that prowled Spira, but the thought of descending down slippery rocks to find this apparently safe path in her current attire was not one she revelled in. Still there was nothing else to be done. With a deep breath, she pulled off her impractical shoes, and used one hand to hitch her skirts up, and the other to hold onto the rocks before she began her somewhat tenuous trip down the cliff side.
There were a few rather unnerving moment when Lulu felt her footing slip, or couldn't find another rock to grip. And more than once, she found herself ducking under the lip of outcroppings only to find that it was without a High Summoner crouched under them, unfortunately soaking herself in the process.
So when Lulu finally located Yuna, and arrived looking harried, barefoot, and bedraggled, Yuna actually laughed, even if it was a slightly hollow laugh without the usual soul that Lulu associated with her.
"Oh... hush," she said, for lack of a better thing to say, and sat down next to Yuna. Her only satisfaction being that Yuna's nightgown seemed to be in just as bad a state as Lulu felt.
She seated herself on the stone next to Yuna, and tried to wring water from her braids with only a little success. They hung, limp and cold, down her back and dribbled water down the inside of her gown. Lulu shivered. "I brave catching a chill for you, Yuna. I hope you appreciate this token of my devotion."
"Your devotion has never been under question," Yuna said softly, fingers toying with her earring, before her mouth twisted wryly. "Neither has your stubbornness."
Lulu swiped at a drop of water that hung at the tip of her nose. "Stubbornness," she said, "Is considered an admirable quality in a black mage. When one is in training, one must be stubborn enough to put up with the minor irritant of being unable to aim spells correctly and injuring oneself more often than not."
Yuna arched an eyebrow sceptically. "You hit yourself with your own spells."
"Of course not," Lulu said, haughtily. "I performed perfectly."
"Of course," Yuna repeated, smiling slightly before that expression faltered, and, with a small sigh, she drew her legs to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. "Why did you follow me?"
Lulu stared at Yuna, as if she couldn't understand the question. "How could I not?" she finally asked. "You are my dear sister, and you are in pain of some sort. You would have me ignore it?"
"I would have you respect my wishes, Guardian, and stay out of my affairs."
Lulu stiffened at the formal tone, and firmly beat back the reflexive impulse to obey because she must. "You," she said, in a voice designed to remind the girl of exactly who was the elder here, "Are no longer a Summoner, my Lady, and I am no longer your Guardian." She hesitated a moment, and when she spoke again, her words were softer, more entreating. "But I am your friend. And I am a friend who is so worried. You are not yourself, Yuna. Kimahri's leaving is sad, but Wakka and I are still here. We love you also."
Yuna shook her head. "I miss Kimahri dreadfully, but his absence is nothing more than a dull ache." She began fiddling with her earring again. "I only wish him well in his travels."
"Then, forgive me, but there must be something dreadfully wrong."
Silence, broken only by the splattering of water droplets on stone.
"What has happened," Lulu asked, "That is so terrible?"
Again Yuna was silent. The silence stretched on for so long that Lulu began to grow worried.
"Yuna? Talk to me?"
"The healer..." Yuna trailed off.
"Did she do something? Say something?" Lulu was incensed, and one could almost feel the air about them crackle with suppressed thunder spells, as the mage struggled to hold back the best way she had of expressing her outrage. "I'll speak to her, I'll-"
"No." Yuna interrupted, placing a restraining hand on Lulu's arm. "It wasn't the healer. Not directly anyway. It was... It is something about me. Something she told me."
**
Unlike some people that she knew who hated healers, their visits, their medicines and their attitudes, Yuna had a fairly neutral attitude towards them. She was a healer herself, though that had not been her life's goal, and so her manner of healing was a knowledge of the white magics that would cure on the battlefield. She could not diagnose illness, or cure disease. She could only Send those the healers had failed to the Farplane when she was asked to. She neither liked nor loathed them in general, though she was quickly coming to despise the woman that Lulu had summoned from her chambers within the temple.
The woman had entered, becoming rather displeased with the fact that Yuna had not returned the devotional prayer motion of those who followed the Yevon faith, before covering it up with her officious attitude. She had bustled around, forcing Yuna to lie atop her bed, ignoring the insistence that the High Summoner was not an invalid, asking probing questions about her diet, her activities recently, and anything unusual that might have happened lately.
After Yuna had finished recounting the telling of the death of Sin, the healer was starting to look like she wished she had not asked, and didn't push any further with her questions. Instead the woman, a mousy looking thing, busied herself with physical and magical tests. She ran her hands across Yuna's body, feeling out signs of injury, and cast curative spells to purge her of any lingering poison that might have been left in her body by Sin.
Yuna privately doubted the effectiveness of spells on a substance that was not present, but she let the healer do it if that was what she wished. She had no real desire to get into a disagreement with the woman over something so petty. It was when the healer cast a diagnostic spell and suddenly clapped her hands together that Yuna became more than a little confused.
"Lady High Summoner, I cannot believe such a thing. How marvellous, you are such a fortunate woman indeed."
Yuna wondered, in an abstract way, if the healer had discovered that her insides had turned to Gil or some other such thing. "What is it?"
"A miracle, High Summoner, a miracle. Why all of Spira would rejoice in such tidings!"
Yuna started to sit up, flattening her mouth in annoyance. "Are you going to tell me what you have found out?"
"Why! My lady! It's wonderful, you're pregnant!"
Yuna thought she was going to pass out. Or throw up. She settled for swallowing, trying to impart some moisture to a suddenly dry throat and mouth.
"That's not possible," she whispered.
"Of course it is, my lady. Do not tell me you were never told about the basic knowledge of life?" The healer smirked, waving her hands above Yuna's body, the musky scent of 'scan' tainting the air once again. "I am quite certain, and have never been mistaken yet."
Yuna raised a hand, rather shakily, to her abdomen. There was nothing there to feel, perhaps a slight bulge though Yuna had put that down to retaining water. True, she had not marked the arrival of her monthly cycle, but she had been warned before she left on the Pilgrimage that the physical strain of the journey took its toll on female bodies. Summoners often lost so much weight and were involved in such vigorous activities during battle and the like that the bodies of females sometimes put a halt on the more unnecessary functions. Like reproduction.
"Of course, no female Summoner has ever given birth after beginning their Pilgrimage," The healer's lips quirked into a smile that fell when she saw that her audience didn't seem to be sharing in her amusement. "They don't usually live long enough to give birth," she continued. "Who knows what the effects will be on a half-breed child, conceived while the Summoner was so close to the Fayth."
The healer leaned forward conspiratorially. "Also, no pregnant woman has been as close to Sin as you, my lady, and... well... either lived or failed to miscarry shortly thereafter."
Yuna stared at the healer. "Half-breed?" she echoed.
The healer straightened, raising her nose officiously. "Well of course I presume the father is your husband."
"Of course," Yuna echoed again, dully this time. She began to wish she hadn't allowed the ladies of the village to let her marital status become common knowledge.
"Well, Lady, I think it's fairly obvious why you've been feeling a little under the weather recently." The healer rummaged in her bag as the spoke, giving off the air of someone only marginally interested in the conversation. "You've been running around, fighting battles and killing things, living off those dreadful excuses for food substitutes they call 'trail rations'."
The healer straightened, pulling out a small leather-wrapped packet, which she unwrapped to reveal dried herbs. Checking them over, she nodded to herself and resealed the packet. "These you drink as tea to combat any nausea you might feel. Don't use them too much though, or they'll lose their effectiveness." She pressed the packet into Yuna's hands, along with a list of foodstuffs which Yuna was supposed to steer clear of, and picked up her bag.
"I'll need to see you fairly regularly from now on. Once a week should suffice for now, please come up to the Temple to see me. I can't always be making house calls after all."
The healer reverenced in the manner of Yevon and made as if to leave.
"Wait."
Yuna's raised voice stopped her in her tracks.
"You," Yuna said, sharply, "Are not to tell anyone else of my 'condition', or you will answer to me."
The healer straightened, offended. "Of course not, my lady. I would never dream of such a thing." And she bustled out of door, to the sounds of worried enquiries from Yuna's Guardians.
Taking a deep breath and pasting a smile on her face, Yuna followed after the healer, determined to convince them all that there was nothing wrong with her at all. Not even something she had never thought to even contemplate might happen.
**
"Oh."
Silence.
"Oh."
Lulu frowned, lowering her head. "Oh," she finally said, even quieter than before. "Why didn't you say something?"
"I don't know. Perhaps I wanted it all to go away. I thought... maybe you'd all think less of me for it."
"Yuna!" Lulu said chidingly, "You took comfort from someone during your Pilgrimage, how could we think less of you for that?"
She didn't realise that Yuna had stopped breathing in fear.
"Who was it?" Lulu asked, folding an arm about Yuna's shoulders. "Was it him?" There was no doubt that she was referring to the blonde Guardian who had stolen Yuna's heart and then faded away with it.
But whatever answer Lulu had been expected, she didn't anticipate the harsh bark of laughter the younger woman uttered.
"Seymour. It actually was Seymour." Yuna sounded small and far away, her thoughts mired in another time and place. "In Bevelle, before the wedding he-" She broke off, unable to finished.
"But-" Lulu was apparently so shocked she was lost for words. Finally, she blurted out, "He was dead!" What she perhaps wanted to say was 'But he was a murderer. But he tried to kill us all. But he tried to destroy the world! And you slept with him?'
Yuna shrugged faintly. "He was able to take life, to forge new living shells of armour from souls, and you find it so incredible he was able to grant life? Perhaps I did also, which is why I did not consider the possibility. He didn't rape me, didn't force me. I was willing, if that makes any difference, though hardly willing in my heart. I needed him to trust me, to believe in my assertion that I was willing to marry him. I needed time to Send him." Yuna bit her lip. "He was surprisingly considerate, actually. Maybe I expected more violence from him because of everything he did. Because of what, perhaps, I had some inkling of what he intended to do. I convinced myself I was prepared to handle whatever he inflicted on me."
She cautiously raised a hand, pressing it lightly against her abdomen. She chuckled mirthlessly. "I wasn't expecting him to inflict this on me, though."
"Why did you let him?" Lulu shook her head. "Oh, Yuna, I can't understand why you'd be prepared to do something like that. You didn't have to."
"But I did. There was no other way. Nothing that would not have made him distrust me."
"You should have told him you weren't ready."
"You don't understand, Lulu," Yuna said sadly. She turned away and closed her eyes, and Lulu was left to stare at the patterns of light the waterfall splashed onto her face that gave her a faintly ethereal look. "Have you ever heard of the phrase 'temple prostitution'?"
**
"Now then, Yuna dear, we need to Talk."
Yuna knew that tone of voice, and she could almost hear the capitalisation that gave the word its significance. She had, after all, heard it before. Lady Nadim, one of Yuna's instructors in the Summoning Arts, had been the one to tell Yuna about the Chocobos and the Bite Bugs when she had realised that Yuna's Ronso guardian had been remiss in instructing his charge in such matters.
"What is it, Lady Nadim?" Yuna enquired politely, setting her pen down and folding her hands in her lap, abandoning the task of copying out the names of fiends that could be found in the Macalania region.
"I need to tell you something of Temple etiquette," Lady Nadim said, carefully, taking a seat on the cushions on the floor next to Yuna. The older, stately woman pursed her lips together as she tried to think of how best to phrase it. "I need to forewarn you of what you might encounter when trying to reach the Chambers of the Fayth."
Yuna frowned slightly, searching her memory and becoming all the more confused of why Nadim was talking to her of such things. "Father Mathers already explained to me the Trials-"
"No, Yuna," interrupted Lady Nadim gently, "I speak not of the mazes, but a different sort of trial." Lady Nadim closed her eyes and lowered her head. "Often, before granting a Summoner entrance to the Trials and the Fayth beyond, Priests and Priestesses have been known to demand gifts that are not Gil nor trinkets that may take their fancy."
Then she was silent so long that Yuna began to wonder if her venerable instructor had fallen asleep. It was then that Yuna's mind made the connection between 'gift-giving' and 'Talk', and she realised what it was the Lady Nadim was saying.
"Oh," Yuna said, in a very quiet voice.
Lady Nadim raised her head, smiling gently and taking Yuna's small cold hand in her own, giving it a reassuring pat. "Not all the Temples demand this. They may all, or none may. It always very much depends upon who is in charge in the places you may visit. Priests and Priestesses of Yevon hold so little else over the Summoners, sometimes I feel as if this is one method they use of controlling us."
If Yuna had not been such a devout acolyte of Yevon, and if she had known then what she would later come to realise about the church, she would have recognised something of what Lady Nadim was trying to tell her. Instead, all she could think of was the information Lady Nadim had suddenly given her. She glanced down at the table, and at her neat printing of names, and was so disconnected from the world about her that she could barely read the words.
Lady Nadim sighed then, and Yuna would later recall this when she discovered that the woman was a fallen Summoner, who had reached the palace of St. Bevelle before retiring from her Pilgrimage, and said, "Yuna, my child, if you have any wish for your first time to have meaning, take it before you depart on your Pilgrimage, or you may find yourself regretting it."
Yuna would later wonder what had been demanded of Nadim at Bevelle that had made this woman give up on her Pilgrimage.
**
The sound of the splashing waterfall was like thunder, and was all that filled the little alcove for a few minutes. Finally, Lulu asked,
"Did you? Before we left on the Pilgrimage...?"
Yuna shook her head, refusing to meet Lulu's eyes.
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"You would have become angered at the idea, all of you. It was kinder to say nothing. The life of a Summoner is one of sacrifices; this was simply one of them."
Lulu raised a hand to her face. "I'm amazed you can be so calm about it."
"I wasn't calm, not at first. But I grew to accept the idea, even if I did not like it. I was a Summoner. I had nothing to live for, but I had all of Spira to die for." Yuna glanced back at Lulu. "In some ways it was not so distasteful. He was gentle, courteous, and it was in many ways not a chore." She closed her eyes, and Lulu caught sight of tears that spilled down her cheeks with the action. "It could so easily have been different."
"But it wasn't." Lulu tried to keep the harshness from her voice, but couldn't help herself. She remembered Kimahri's anguish at finding the Maester had killed his tribe. She recalled the pain and fighting she and her comrades had suffered at Seymour's hands. She knew who he had murdered to get to his position, and what he intended for Spira.
"I know," Yuna said, "He was a murderer. But I carried his Mother's Aeon. It's hard to be judgemental of him, when I touched the dreams of one who felt so unconditionally for him."
Lulu hesitated slightly. "Yuna... there are... roots and herbs. They can... absolve you of this problem."
Yuna's breath hitched, staring into Lulu's face with shock, not believing that such a thing could be suggested. Or perhaps she had never considered it.
Lulu looked back into Yuna's face with quiet concern, watching the play of emotions that was ranging across the girl, wondering what her next action would be. "Yuna?" she asked, tentatively.
Yuna broke down, feeling the tears flowing freely, and her breath caught in sobs. She wrapped her arms around Lulu's waist, rested her head in the mage's lap, and felt Lulu's fingers soothingly stroke her hair.
"Oh, Yuna. What happened?" Lulu asked gently, not ceasing in the motion of her hands.
So Yuna broke her self-imposed oath never to tell another living, or dead, soul of what had happened between herself and the Maester of Yevon, and began, her voice watery, to tell her friend everything.
**
It was the birds, Yuna had decided; the birds that sat in the meticulously maintained blossom trees outside of her window. They did so insist on singing. In the bright, fresh morning in the city of Bevelle, the sound of their chirruping sounded like taunting to Yuna, teasing her with a freedom she could not have, and in all likelihood would never have again. Even if she climbed out of the window, she would only find herself upon a balcony. Granted, it was a huge balcony that contained a garden, but it was still a garden that was suspended many stories above the ground.
She had a plan to survive such a jump, but she knew it would be futile. If she were to do that, she would never complete the mission she had assigned herself. She was trapped more by her duty than she was by the guards in the hallway, and the distance to the ground.
Perhaps the Maesters knew that. Perhaps that was why obvious security was absent.
Yuna's fingers plucked nervously at the bed coverings she sat upon, and even in her state of agitation she couldn't help but luxuriate in their softness; such a change from weeks of sleeping upon thin and ragged bedrolls in tents, often awakenings damp and sore after a night in the wild. Her body, unused to the gentle support, had rebelled, and now she was suffering from the most horrendous pain, the muscles in her neck having seized up and gone into spasm.
She got to her feet, striding over to the window, with every intention of slamming them closed, but stopped as her legs bumped into the window seat, staring out over the city. From here, she could see the ocean, and the sprawl of the city. She could see the gardens the likes of which couldn't be cultivated anywhere other than Bevelle, for the simple reason of the even present threat of Sin.
She sighed, feeling overwhelmed, and sat down dejectedly on the seat. Even if she succeeded in Sending Seymour, she would never escape here alive. Her death would bring one man to justice, but she would never defeat Sin. The world would continue to know the threat of the monster who killed and destroyed relentlessly. Perhaps one of the other Summoners would succeed, but what if they didn't?
It was a sort of arrogance, Yuna supposed, but one that Summoners needed. They had to be know beyond doubt that they would defeat Sin, otherwise they faltered, and could not go through with what had to be done.
She folded her hands in her lap, staring at her fingers. She felt miserable enough to cry.
Her head was brought up as she heard voices in the corridor, and thought they were passing guards until they stopped outside the door and sounded all too familiar. Yuna hastily swiped at her eyes with her sleeve to hide the tell-tale traces of burgeoning tears, and stood up as they door swung open to admit Maester Seymour.
"Sit down, Lady Yuna," he said, gesturing to the window seat which still bore the imprint of her weight amongst its cushions.
She did so. "I was not expecting to see you," she said, fighting the temptation to turn away and stare out at the trees so she wouldn't have to look at him. "As you were busy with your duties. Or so the ladies said." Those ladies being the gaggling mob that had come to measure her for her wedding gown two days earlier, and who couldn't stop talking about how marvellous it was that Yuna was marrying Seymour, and how they were all so jealous.
It had made Yuna want to seize her staff from where she had laid it folded against a wall and smack them individually over the head. Yevon had allowed her to keep the weapon, but Yuna suspected that it was only a display of the power they held over her. As far as they were concerned, even armed Yuna was no threat.
"My duties are not so pressing they forbid me time spent with my bride-to-be."
Yuna wondered if that insufferably smug tone had always been present in his voice, or he only felt secure enough to allow it to creep in now, when his path seemed certain. "Of course," she said, with a faint smile she was sure looked as false as it felt, "I am gratified."
This was perhaps the worst part. She had convinced him after he had kidnapped her from the Al-Bhed Home that she did mean to marry him, as she had stated at Macalania Temple. It had only been the interference of her Guardians that had made her feel compelled to change her mind. It wouldn't be until Yuna faced her namesake in Zanarkand and learned the truth behind the Final Summoning that she would realise why Seymour needed her to enter a bond with him willingly.
Now she did turn her head away and towards the window, wincing as the muscles in her neck protested at the moment and sent a sharp stab of pain through her temples. She raised her hand to her neck, feeling the knots in the muscles crunch as she pressed down on them. It wasn't much of a relief, but it was better than nothing.
"Are you well, my lady?" He asked, taking note of the way she attempted to work out the kink.
"It's just a little muscle pain. I will be fine." Yuna dropped her hand to her lap and attempted to dress her face in an expression that would be convincing for the lie she had just spun.
"Of course, but I would be remiss if I ignored it."
She was about to protest when she felt his fingers, thinner and more delicate looking than a Human's, but deceptive in their appearance of weakness, digging into her neck and shoulders. He moved his fingertips in rhythmic circles, careful not to catch her skin with his wicked looking nails. He sought out the knots of bunched muscle in sinew, rubbing at them until they started to smooth out.
In spite of herself, Yuna felt her body starting to relax, the relief from the nagging discomfort enough to overcome the tension she had felt at his touching her. Deciding, for a moment, that it would not harm her resolve to bring Jyscal's killer to justice, Yuna gave herself over the warm soothing sensation of the massage and let her head loll forward. A whispered spell, and the scent of fresh greens brought with it a lack of pain in her abused muscles.
Seymour was, Yuna decided, far too good at this.
She stood, dislodging his hands, unconsciously running her fingers over the skin he had been touching, the after-effect of the magic making her nerves tingle. "Thank you, Lord Seymour," she said, forcing herself to fold her hands before her.
"So formal?" Seymour asked, languidly taking up the seat she had just vacated. "We are to be wed tomorrow morning, Lady Yuna, surely such formalities should be put aside."
In truth Yuna liked the distance the formalities gave her, but she relented nonetheless. "I believe I can do that... Seymour."
He smiled at her. "Sit down, Yuna," he said, once again.
Yuna obeyed silently, refusing to allow herself to twist her fingers together as she wanted to, and had that problem solved when he clasped both of her hands in his, and tugged her closer, towards him.
"There is something I must tell you of," he said, and Yuna swallowed convulsively. She couldn't contemplate what he might want to say. Her mind was whirling too nervously for her to put together a coherent thought. Instead, she just nodded, indicating he should continue.
"There is," he said, "A tradition amongst the Guado. A marriage is, in itself, meaningless. But it does signify the recognition of a union between two people who have already bonded on the most intimate of levels."
Yuna opened her mouth, closed it again and swallowed, her eyes fixed upon their intertwined fingers as she tried to form a sentence. When she finally looked up, she saw Seymour gazing at her with thinly veiled amusement, though, it seemed, it was not malicious, but affectionate. She felt ill, and all she could see was Lady Nadim's face warning her of what was to be expected of a Summoner on her Pilgrimage.
Seymour, it seemed, took her silence for confusion, which was not too far from the truth, and continued, "Yuna, I speak of the intimacy that Humans know as the purview of the already wed, but the Guado consider a prerequisite. My lady, I would have us bind ourselves together in such a manner."
**
"And you BELIEVED him?"
Lulu, in spite of indicating she would remain quiet, apparently couldn't stop herself.
"Good grief, Yuna, I know you're young and inexperienced but I thought that you of all people had more sense than that! That has to be one of the most ridiculous-"
"Actually," Yuna said, the corners of her mouth twitching. "He wasn't lying. I looked it up. Later, of course, when we had escaped and resumed the Pilgrimage. Some of Rin's employees are very well educated on the matter of customs."
Lulu made incoherent sounds of disbelief, but fell silent again as Yuna carried on speaking.
**
Yuna licked her lips. "I am... flattered," she finally said, choosing her words carefully. "That you would consider our union a given."
"Not a given," Seymour corrected, "Merely a formality. A way to show Spira the joining between Summoner and Maester."
"A political alliance," Yuna said, inclining her head slightly. "It would give the people hope."
"I confess, Yuna," Seymour said. "I have rather become enamoured of your, your strength and courage. I would join you on your Pilgrimage, and follow you to Zanarkand itself and the Final Summoning."
Yuna almost jerked her hands away in shock, but managed to only flinch at that statement. "You would? But-" She calmed herself from her initial outburst and took a deep breath. "You are a Summoner as am I. You know that death awaits me beyond the Final Summoning."
Seymour looked a little distance, thinking of some other time perhaps. "I have walked the path of the Pilgrim," he said. "And know what awaits you. I would not wish you to face it alone."
Not knowing his reasoning at the time, Yuna wondered for a long moment whether he truly did wish to support her in this, whether his motives were truly altruistic. He may have killed Jyscal, but was that an anomaly?
No, she firmly told herself. He had killed Jyscal, and whether it was a single occurrence or not, he was a murderer. He was unsent, and as a Summoner, she was bound by Oath and Honour to see him to the Farplane. It was only the fact that it needed to be public that she endured this charade.
And so what else could she do, but indicate her acquiescence, with a nod of the head and a whispered word.
It wouldn't matter anyway.
The chirruping of the birds in the blossom trees made her glance towards them, no pain causing her to arrest the motion this time, and she watch a delicate looking bird with brown and blue features tending to a nest of eggs, and the mother that sat atop them. The delicate pink petals obscured her sight of them partially, but she could still see them.
"I had never thought this would happen," Yuna whispered, and then bit her lip, horrified she had spoken what she had intended to be a private thought out loud. Her head turned sharply, to see what Seymour's response to this would be.
"I profess to being curious," Seymour said, his thumb moving across the back of her hand.
Yuna offered a tremulous smile. "What of, my lord?"
"No one," he asked, "Demanded your services on your journey thus far?"
Yuna's throat seemed parched of all moisture, and shook her head somewhat timidly.
"Ah, then I am glad for you," Seymour said, and she jerked her head up to stare at him.
He stroked her cheek and smiled at her shock. "That your innocence was not bartered for the Fayth, like cheap currency."
But that was what she was doing now, was it not? Exchanging her virtue for justice? For the chance to show to Spira exactly who Jyscal's killer was? Such a hurriedly thought-up plan, when she had discovered that it was Seymour who'd arrange for her 'liberation' from the Al-Bhed so that they could be wed under the gaze of Spira, and she had committed herself to carrying it through. Yuna was too well-trained in the obligations of duty to consider it an unfair trade.
Which was why, when Seymour leaned in towards her, his lips finding hers, that she did her best to swallow her revulsion at the fact she was engaged in a rather intimate embrace with a murderer and simply attempted not to think of much of anything for a while.
**
There wasn't the sound of speech between Lulu and Yuna after the latter had finished speaking. Yuna just laid there, head on Lulu's lap while the mage stroked her hair soothingly.
Finally, Lulu said, "You did what you had to."
"I know."
"None would blame you for it."
Yuna sighed and closed her eyes. "I know."
Perhaps Lulu was trying to convince herself of that, more than she was Yuna.
"Come on," she finally said, "Let's go back to the hut. You need to get changed out of those wet clothes."
**
When they got back to the hut, and Lulu had mothered Yuna appropriately, making her warm tea, finding her a change of clothes and disposing of her now rather wet and slimy nightgown in the laundry basket, Yuna felt rather a lot better than she had upon awakening that morning. Telling Lulu the story had freed her spirit immensely, and the road ahead did not look nearly so intimidating.
Lulu bit her lip anxiously, just as Yuna was starting to relax, immediately dispelling that soothing calm that she'd been feeling. "Yuna, I have to tell Wakka."
Yuna looked up at her, before glancing away again.
"I think he deserves to know," Lulu continued, "He has been your staunch guardian since before your Pilgrimage. Would you have him find out later, and find out that you hid this knowledge from him?"
Yuna hesitated, and then shook her head. "Of course not, Lulu. Wakka deserves far more than that. You all do." She tightened her grip around her warm tea that was almost gone, leaving only the dregs and the sediment collecting in the bottom of the mug. "You can tell him. I don't think I have the strength to."
Lulu smiled, but it was one without any humour, and her eyes were sad.
It was much later in the day, when Yuna had retired to her bed, emotional exhaustion translating itself into physical, that Lulu found herself standing outside Wakka's hut, trying to think of how best to broad the subject with him. She couldn't think of how best to start, and Marta, the former Apprentice Summoner who had begun working with one of the seamstresses, was giving her increasingly odder looks the longer that Lulu lingered there.
When she finally gathered up enough courage to push back the curtain and step inside, having decided to wait and see how the conversation evolved, she was rather disappointed when she discovered that he wasn't actually inside. Feeling unaccountably disgruntled, she stood in the middle of his floor, arms folded and glaring at the doorway, waiting for him to return and trying not to turn Yuna's situation over and over again in her mind.
So when Wakka did return to his home, after having spent the morning on the beach helping the fishermen repair nets, he wondered what he had done wrong to earn Lulu's ire. "Lu?" he asked, nervously.
"Where have you been? Never mind." She cut him off even as he opened his mouth to speak her. "You're never around when I need you to be."
Wakka rather thought that this was a little unfair on Lulu's part, but since something was obviously distressing her, he ignored it. "Want some tea? I got some breads from the baker, but, I don' know, he's doing something funny to his dough. Tastes strange, ya know? I've half a mind to say so, I do..."
Lulu had wilted by this point, her irritation dispelling as easily as the wind blows away the clouds. "Wakka," she said tiredly, sitting herself on his bed, "Will you listen? I have to tell you something. It's about Yuna."
Wakka turned back from the stove he had crossed towards, moving to her side and sitting down next to her, folding an arm around her shoulders. "What is it, Lu?"
Taking a deep breath, Lulu began to tell her friend everything, leaving nothing out of what she had been told, and doing her best to ignore the shock that had stole onto Wakka's features and remained there throughout her telling.
It never occurred to Lulu, though, that someone else might be listening to the tale.
- End of Part Five
Part Five: Temporal Convergence of Hypnogogic Regressions
**
The stink of discharged machina weaponry, weaponry that which Yuna had been raised to abhor, and made her want to choke on more than the smell, had filled the air. It was like some sort of burning mineral, sulphur, she thought, as was used to create matches. She had been sitting exhausted atop a low rock, burdened with the knowledge that, as a Summoner, she would be required to send the souls that lay within the mangled corpses littering the beach. They hadn't asked her to come yet, but she knew it was only a matter of time until they had straightened out the bodies, and cleared a path she could walk through.
So she sat, nursing her wounds, and staring over at the figure who stood at the very edge of the cliff, watching over the progress of the walking wounded as they tended to their comrades. What would the repercussions be for Seymour, she wondered. Would he be called to task by the other Maesters for supporting this action against Sin that had cost so many lives, for condoning an alliance with the Al-Bhed? What of Kinoc?
She could not say what lay within the minds of the Maesters, for she was not privy to such things.
As Lulu tightened the bandage around Yuna's leg, causing her to glance down, one of several spots in which Yuna had been injured by flying stone shards that had been thrown at her with the thrashings around of the great fiend that she, Auron and Seymour had destroyed. There were no healing potions or medicines to be found, Yuna having insisted that the mostly uninjured party give them to help those who lay on the beach, and she was too exhausted to heal herself with magic.
The Mushroom Rock Road, she had thought, was fascinating. The peculiar rock formations had caused her no end of interest as they had crossed paths and climbed to the tops of precipices, and in some part of her mind, she lamented the lack of education she had in what caused these rocks to shape this way. Thoughts of erosion and of vicious storms had crossed her mind.
Now whenever she thought of this Road, she would only see Sin, and see the death.
It only strengthened her resolve. Seymour had said she was not strong enough. She would become strong enough. She would become as strong as her father.
Lulu got to her feet to go and see to Wakka, who had apparently inhaled a mouthful of water (how he had done this was beyond Yuna) and was apparently not feeling very well in the aftermath. It left Yuna alone, and she stood, crossing over to the blue-haired man who watched the macabre scene on the beach below.
He looked at her as she approached, and his eyes flickered to her leg. He seemed somewhat tired himself; she knew he had been helping to mop up a few fiends left behind in Sin's wake, and he had been overexerting himself slightly, it seemed. He raised his hand.
She closed her eyes as a deliciously warm sensation swept over her. It was one she only usually encountered in the heat of battle, when she was too unnerved by the excitement in her veins to notice such things. The wash of blue-white light that rippled under her skin, and the smell of freshly cut grass invaded her senses.
"I did not need you to do that," she said, opening her eyes to look at Seymour, who had lowered his hand after casting the curative spell upon her. "There are others more in need of help than I."
"I disagree," Seymour said smoothly, and had said nothing further on the subject.
**
Lulu, after learning of Kimahri's intent to depart, and seeing him off with both Wakka and Yuna at the pier, had been making regular visits to Yuna's hut. The young woman had been refusing most company, and she would have been refusing to eat as well, had Lulu not been making a nuisance of herself, forcing her to eat and sitting in the hut so that there was at least someone else there to talk to.
Yuna had not availed herself of the offer, preferring to sequester herself within her room, apparently deep in thought. Lulu's only comfort was that there did not seem to be any recurrence of the strange tiredness that had plagued her. This had been the state of affairs now for several days.
Wakka, he had said, didn't know what to do for her. "She's a girl, Lu," he had told her. "She's my friend and like a little sister to me, ya? But I still don' know what to say, apart from what I said at the beach."
He had said he was there for her, that he'd miss Kimahri too, and that the blitzball team wanted to throw her a little party to cheer her up, so she should be ready for some terrible cooking. It had made Yuna smile for a moment, but it had faded quickly. She had shuffled back to the village looking despondent.
It was so totally out of character for Yuna that it made Lulu more than a little afraid. Not even when she thought she would give her life for Spira had Yuna been so sad. Lulu paused in tidying up the little kitchen of Yuna's, and now Yuna's alone, hut. Could it be the opposite, she wondered? Could living be what made Yuna so miserable?
She felt cold, and she nearly dropped the plate she held. A Summoner expected death. That was their goal. It was what they travelled for months to accomplish. Could it be...? Could it be that a Summoner desired death in some way? Could the prospect of living be so terrible?
Lulu shook her head sharply, saying "No!" aloud to convince herself of it. Yuna wasn't that sort of person, the sort to give up on something, especially not life. Lulu refused to believe it, and she would never let Yuna do such a thing anyway. Not now. Not when she didn't have to.
"Lulu? Who's there?"
Embarrassed, Lulu turned to face Yuna, who had poked her head out from behind the curtain. From the way Yuna's hair was mussed, she guessed that the younger woman had been sleeping when she had heard Lulu's utterance. "I'm sorry," she said, "I didn't mean to disturb you."
"No, that's alright." Yuna stepped out from her room, still clad in a sleeping shift. It was well into mid-morning, but Yuna had apparently not awoken until Lulu had become loud. One more reason for Lulu to worry about her. "Strange dreams."
"Nightmares?" Lulu asked, striving for an unconcerned tone as she finished stacking plates.
"Memories," Yuna said, flattening her mouth before sitting down at the table, sighing as Lulu moved to make her tea and something to eat. "I'm not a child."
Lulu nodded as she poured water from a jug into the kettle. "Of course you're not," she said, plucking two mugs from a shelf, demonstrating her intention to share the tea with Yuna. Faced with this, Yuna relented, picking at the sleeve of her nightgown. Lulu bustled about in silence for a moment, settling plates and little fresh pastries on the table, as well as the mugs.
"Would you like honey?" Lulu asked solicitously, glancing over her shoulder at Yuna.
"No," Yuna said quietly.
Lulu blinked. "Oh, I'm sorry. I thought you liked it."
"I do. The healer said I shouldn't eat it."
Lulu blinked once more, feeling somewhat akin to an owl. "I see," she said neutrally, setting the teapot down on the table and pulling out a chair without another word, while Yuna attempted to shred a pastry with her fingers rather than eat it.
When Yuna finally annihilated the pastry that Lulu had been intending to claim for herself, she decided that perhaps a most direct tactic was called for.
"Is there something wrong?" she asked.
Yuna didn't glance up from the pastry. "Not at all, Lulu. I told you before."
"Ah," Lulu said, "So you did."
There was silence for another few minutes, occasionally broken by the sound of dying pastry, or Lulu's spoon as she stirred sweetening into her tea.
"Are you quite sure?" she asked.
"Yes!" Yuna bite out, rather harshly in Lulu's opinion.
"Because you do not seem well."
"I know myself, Lulu," Yuna said, frowning. "I am well."
Lulu nodded briskly. "In that case, perhaps you would not be disagreeable towards meeting the High Priest of Besaid Temple. He has heard of your statements regarding Sin and the Fayth, and wanted to have a chance to talk to you about the possibility-"
Lulu tried not to start at Yuna jumped to her feet, the chair banging to the floor in her rush to stand. Yuna had clenched her hands into fists, though she was clearly trying to relax them.
"I'm sorry, Lulu," she said finally, "I don't feel like tea this morning. And please pass my apologies to the Priest. I will not be meeting him today."
Yuna fled the hut, the flowers outside trampled noisily as she ran out. There were a few startled cries from the nearby villagers, presumably at seeing the High Summoner running out of her hut in her nightgown.
Lulu sipped her tea sanguinely. Ten minutes, she decided. She would allow Yuna ten minutes to collect her thoughts and then she would follow her.
**
As she stared at the path she had to descend, Lulu somewhat regretted allowing Yuna to get to her destination. She had never feared for Yuna's life; the fiends of Besaid were hardly of significance to a woman who had faced Sin and won. But Yuna, it seemed, had fled to the same place she had as a child, when something or someone had made her upset. And she had fled here precisely because of its inaccessibility.
Before the ruins of an old civilisation that made its presence tangibly felt on the road to the village, there were waterfalls, and further down the cliff there were outcroppings and caves that wove into the very rock of the island itself. There was a safe path, Lulu knew, that was startlingly free of rock slime and water, and let someone small hide underneath the lip of an outcropping, perfectly dry and protecting from all sight and sound.
It had been Yuna's secret place, until one day where the girl had lost track of the time and had fallen asleep in her little cubby-hole. Kimahri had worked most of the village into a panic when the girl had stumbled back, unaware of any reason she could have worried people. The next time Yuna had disappeared, Lulu had followed her and found the secret place that the girl was fond of.
But she had never tried to get down there herself.
Lulu sighed. She was perfectly agile, as she had to be to avoid some of the quicker fiends that prowled Spira, but the thought of descending down slippery rocks to find this apparently safe path in her current attire was not one she revelled in. Still there was nothing else to be done. With a deep breath, she pulled off her impractical shoes, and used one hand to hitch her skirts up, and the other to hold onto the rocks before she began her somewhat tenuous trip down the cliff side.
There were a few rather unnerving moment when Lulu felt her footing slip, or couldn't find another rock to grip. And more than once, she found herself ducking under the lip of outcroppings only to find that it was without a High Summoner crouched under them, unfortunately soaking herself in the process.
So when Lulu finally located Yuna, and arrived looking harried, barefoot, and bedraggled, Yuna actually laughed, even if it was a slightly hollow laugh without the usual soul that Lulu associated with her.
"Oh... hush," she said, for lack of a better thing to say, and sat down next to Yuna. Her only satisfaction being that Yuna's nightgown seemed to be in just as bad a state as Lulu felt.
She seated herself on the stone next to Yuna, and tried to wring water from her braids with only a little success. They hung, limp and cold, down her back and dribbled water down the inside of her gown. Lulu shivered. "I brave catching a chill for you, Yuna. I hope you appreciate this token of my devotion."
"Your devotion has never been under question," Yuna said softly, fingers toying with her earring, before her mouth twisted wryly. "Neither has your stubbornness."
Lulu swiped at a drop of water that hung at the tip of her nose. "Stubbornness," she said, "Is considered an admirable quality in a black mage. When one is in training, one must be stubborn enough to put up with the minor irritant of being unable to aim spells correctly and injuring oneself more often than not."
Yuna arched an eyebrow sceptically. "You hit yourself with your own spells."
"Of course not," Lulu said, haughtily. "I performed perfectly."
"Of course," Yuna repeated, smiling slightly before that expression faltered, and, with a small sigh, she drew her legs to her chest and rested her chin on her knees. "Why did you follow me?"
Lulu stared at Yuna, as if she couldn't understand the question. "How could I not?" she finally asked. "You are my dear sister, and you are in pain of some sort. You would have me ignore it?"
"I would have you respect my wishes, Guardian, and stay out of my affairs."
Lulu stiffened at the formal tone, and firmly beat back the reflexive impulse to obey because she must. "You," she said, in a voice designed to remind the girl of exactly who was the elder here, "Are no longer a Summoner, my Lady, and I am no longer your Guardian." She hesitated a moment, and when she spoke again, her words were softer, more entreating. "But I am your friend. And I am a friend who is so worried. You are not yourself, Yuna. Kimahri's leaving is sad, but Wakka and I are still here. We love you also."
Yuna shook her head. "I miss Kimahri dreadfully, but his absence is nothing more than a dull ache." She began fiddling with her earring again. "I only wish him well in his travels."
"Then, forgive me, but there must be something dreadfully wrong."
Silence, broken only by the splattering of water droplets on stone.
"What has happened," Lulu asked, "That is so terrible?"
Again Yuna was silent. The silence stretched on for so long that Lulu began to grow worried.
"Yuna? Talk to me?"
"The healer..." Yuna trailed off.
"Did she do something? Say something?" Lulu was incensed, and one could almost feel the air about them crackle with suppressed thunder spells, as the mage struggled to hold back the best way she had of expressing her outrage. "I'll speak to her, I'll-"
"No." Yuna interrupted, placing a restraining hand on Lulu's arm. "It wasn't the healer. Not directly anyway. It was... It is something about me. Something she told me."
**
Unlike some people that she knew who hated healers, their visits, their medicines and their attitudes, Yuna had a fairly neutral attitude towards them. She was a healer herself, though that had not been her life's goal, and so her manner of healing was a knowledge of the white magics that would cure on the battlefield. She could not diagnose illness, or cure disease. She could only Send those the healers had failed to the Farplane when she was asked to. She neither liked nor loathed them in general, though she was quickly coming to despise the woman that Lulu had summoned from her chambers within the temple.
The woman had entered, becoming rather displeased with the fact that Yuna had not returned the devotional prayer motion of those who followed the Yevon faith, before covering it up with her officious attitude. She had bustled around, forcing Yuna to lie atop her bed, ignoring the insistence that the High Summoner was not an invalid, asking probing questions about her diet, her activities recently, and anything unusual that might have happened lately.
After Yuna had finished recounting the telling of the death of Sin, the healer was starting to look like she wished she had not asked, and didn't push any further with her questions. Instead the woman, a mousy looking thing, busied herself with physical and magical tests. She ran her hands across Yuna's body, feeling out signs of injury, and cast curative spells to purge her of any lingering poison that might have been left in her body by Sin.
Yuna privately doubted the effectiveness of spells on a substance that was not present, but she let the healer do it if that was what she wished. She had no real desire to get into a disagreement with the woman over something so petty. It was when the healer cast a diagnostic spell and suddenly clapped her hands together that Yuna became more than a little confused.
"Lady High Summoner, I cannot believe such a thing. How marvellous, you are such a fortunate woman indeed."
Yuna wondered, in an abstract way, if the healer had discovered that her insides had turned to Gil or some other such thing. "What is it?"
"A miracle, High Summoner, a miracle. Why all of Spira would rejoice in such tidings!"
Yuna started to sit up, flattening her mouth in annoyance. "Are you going to tell me what you have found out?"
"Why! My lady! It's wonderful, you're pregnant!"
Yuna thought she was going to pass out. Or throw up. She settled for swallowing, trying to impart some moisture to a suddenly dry throat and mouth.
"That's not possible," she whispered.
"Of course it is, my lady. Do not tell me you were never told about the basic knowledge of life?" The healer smirked, waving her hands above Yuna's body, the musky scent of 'scan' tainting the air once again. "I am quite certain, and have never been mistaken yet."
Yuna raised a hand, rather shakily, to her abdomen. There was nothing there to feel, perhaps a slight bulge though Yuna had put that down to retaining water. True, she had not marked the arrival of her monthly cycle, but she had been warned before she left on the Pilgrimage that the physical strain of the journey took its toll on female bodies. Summoners often lost so much weight and were involved in such vigorous activities during battle and the like that the bodies of females sometimes put a halt on the more unnecessary functions. Like reproduction.
"Of course, no female Summoner has ever given birth after beginning their Pilgrimage," The healer's lips quirked into a smile that fell when she saw that her audience didn't seem to be sharing in her amusement. "They don't usually live long enough to give birth," she continued. "Who knows what the effects will be on a half-breed child, conceived while the Summoner was so close to the Fayth."
The healer leaned forward conspiratorially. "Also, no pregnant woman has been as close to Sin as you, my lady, and... well... either lived or failed to miscarry shortly thereafter."
Yuna stared at the healer. "Half-breed?" she echoed.
The healer straightened, raising her nose officiously. "Well of course I presume the father is your husband."
"Of course," Yuna echoed again, dully this time. She began to wish she hadn't allowed the ladies of the village to let her marital status become common knowledge.
"Well, Lady, I think it's fairly obvious why you've been feeling a little under the weather recently." The healer rummaged in her bag as the spoke, giving off the air of someone only marginally interested in the conversation. "You've been running around, fighting battles and killing things, living off those dreadful excuses for food substitutes they call 'trail rations'."
The healer straightened, pulling out a small leather-wrapped packet, which she unwrapped to reveal dried herbs. Checking them over, she nodded to herself and resealed the packet. "These you drink as tea to combat any nausea you might feel. Don't use them too much though, or they'll lose their effectiveness." She pressed the packet into Yuna's hands, along with a list of foodstuffs which Yuna was supposed to steer clear of, and picked up her bag.
"I'll need to see you fairly regularly from now on. Once a week should suffice for now, please come up to the Temple to see me. I can't always be making house calls after all."
The healer reverenced in the manner of Yevon and made as if to leave.
"Wait."
Yuna's raised voice stopped her in her tracks.
"You," Yuna said, sharply, "Are not to tell anyone else of my 'condition', or you will answer to me."
The healer straightened, offended. "Of course not, my lady. I would never dream of such a thing." And she bustled out of door, to the sounds of worried enquiries from Yuna's Guardians.
Taking a deep breath and pasting a smile on her face, Yuna followed after the healer, determined to convince them all that there was nothing wrong with her at all. Not even something she had never thought to even contemplate might happen.
**
"Oh."
Silence.
"Oh."
Lulu frowned, lowering her head. "Oh," she finally said, even quieter than before. "Why didn't you say something?"
"I don't know. Perhaps I wanted it all to go away. I thought... maybe you'd all think less of me for it."
"Yuna!" Lulu said chidingly, "You took comfort from someone during your Pilgrimage, how could we think less of you for that?"
She didn't realise that Yuna had stopped breathing in fear.
"Who was it?" Lulu asked, folding an arm about Yuna's shoulders. "Was it him?" There was no doubt that she was referring to the blonde Guardian who had stolen Yuna's heart and then faded away with it.
But whatever answer Lulu had been expected, she didn't anticipate the harsh bark of laughter the younger woman uttered.
"Seymour. It actually was Seymour." Yuna sounded small and far away, her thoughts mired in another time and place. "In Bevelle, before the wedding he-" She broke off, unable to finished.
"But-" Lulu was apparently so shocked she was lost for words. Finally, she blurted out, "He was dead!" What she perhaps wanted to say was 'But he was a murderer. But he tried to kill us all. But he tried to destroy the world! And you slept with him?'
Yuna shrugged faintly. "He was able to take life, to forge new living shells of armour from souls, and you find it so incredible he was able to grant life? Perhaps I did also, which is why I did not consider the possibility. He didn't rape me, didn't force me. I was willing, if that makes any difference, though hardly willing in my heart. I needed him to trust me, to believe in my assertion that I was willing to marry him. I needed time to Send him." Yuna bit her lip. "He was surprisingly considerate, actually. Maybe I expected more violence from him because of everything he did. Because of what, perhaps, I had some inkling of what he intended to do. I convinced myself I was prepared to handle whatever he inflicted on me."
She cautiously raised a hand, pressing it lightly against her abdomen. She chuckled mirthlessly. "I wasn't expecting him to inflict this on me, though."
"Why did you let him?" Lulu shook her head. "Oh, Yuna, I can't understand why you'd be prepared to do something like that. You didn't have to."
"But I did. There was no other way. Nothing that would not have made him distrust me."
"You should have told him you weren't ready."
"You don't understand, Lulu," Yuna said sadly. She turned away and closed her eyes, and Lulu was left to stare at the patterns of light the waterfall splashed onto her face that gave her a faintly ethereal look. "Have you ever heard of the phrase 'temple prostitution'?"
**
"Now then, Yuna dear, we need to Talk."
Yuna knew that tone of voice, and she could almost hear the capitalisation that gave the word its significance. She had, after all, heard it before. Lady Nadim, one of Yuna's instructors in the Summoning Arts, had been the one to tell Yuna about the Chocobos and the Bite Bugs when she had realised that Yuna's Ronso guardian had been remiss in instructing his charge in such matters.
"What is it, Lady Nadim?" Yuna enquired politely, setting her pen down and folding her hands in her lap, abandoning the task of copying out the names of fiends that could be found in the Macalania region.
"I need to tell you something of Temple etiquette," Lady Nadim said, carefully, taking a seat on the cushions on the floor next to Yuna. The older, stately woman pursed her lips together as she tried to think of how best to phrase it. "I need to forewarn you of what you might encounter when trying to reach the Chambers of the Fayth."
Yuna frowned slightly, searching her memory and becoming all the more confused of why Nadim was talking to her of such things. "Father Mathers already explained to me the Trials-"
"No, Yuna," interrupted Lady Nadim gently, "I speak not of the mazes, but a different sort of trial." Lady Nadim closed her eyes and lowered her head. "Often, before granting a Summoner entrance to the Trials and the Fayth beyond, Priests and Priestesses have been known to demand gifts that are not Gil nor trinkets that may take their fancy."
Then she was silent so long that Yuna began to wonder if her venerable instructor had fallen asleep. It was then that Yuna's mind made the connection between 'gift-giving' and 'Talk', and she realised what it was the Lady Nadim was saying.
"Oh," Yuna said, in a very quiet voice.
Lady Nadim raised her head, smiling gently and taking Yuna's small cold hand in her own, giving it a reassuring pat. "Not all the Temples demand this. They may all, or none may. It always very much depends upon who is in charge in the places you may visit. Priests and Priestesses of Yevon hold so little else over the Summoners, sometimes I feel as if this is one method they use of controlling us."
If Yuna had not been such a devout acolyte of Yevon, and if she had known then what she would later come to realise about the church, she would have recognised something of what Lady Nadim was trying to tell her. Instead, all she could think of was the information Lady Nadim had suddenly given her. She glanced down at the table, and at her neat printing of names, and was so disconnected from the world about her that she could barely read the words.
Lady Nadim sighed then, and Yuna would later recall this when she discovered that the woman was a fallen Summoner, who had reached the palace of St. Bevelle before retiring from her Pilgrimage, and said, "Yuna, my child, if you have any wish for your first time to have meaning, take it before you depart on your Pilgrimage, or you may find yourself regretting it."
Yuna would later wonder what had been demanded of Nadim at Bevelle that had made this woman give up on her Pilgrimage.
**
The sound of the splashing waterfall was like thunder, and was all that filled the little alcove for a few minutes. Finally, Lulu asked,
"Did you? Before we left on the Pilgrimage...?"
Yuna shook her head, refusing to meet Lulu's eyes.
"Why didn't you tell us?"
"You would have become angered at the idea, all of you. It was kinder to say nothing. The life of a Summoner is one of sacrifices; this was simply one of them."
Lulu raised a hand to her face. "I'm amazed you can be so calm about it."
"I wasn't calm, not at first. But I grew to accept the idea, even if I did not like it. I was a Summoner. I had nothing to live for, but I had all of Spira to die for." Yuna glanced back at Lulu. "In some ways it was not so distasteful. He was gentle, courteous, and it was in many ways not a chore." She closed her eyes, and Lulu caught sight of tears that spilled down her cheeks with the action. "It could so easily have been different."
"But it wasn't." Lulu tried to keep the harshness from her voice, but couldn't help herself. She remembered Kimahri's anguish at finding the Maester had killed his tribe. She recalled the pain and fighting she and her comrades had suffered at Seymour's hands. She knew who he had murdered to get to his position, and what he intended for Spira.
"I know," Yuna said, "He was a murderer. But I carried his Mother's Aeon. It's hard to be judgemental of him, when I touched the dreams of one who felt so unconditionally for him."
Lulu hesitated slightly. "Yuna... there are... roots and herbs. They can... absolve you of this problem."
Yuna's breath hitched, staring into Lulu's face with shock, not believing that such a thing could be suggested. Or perhaps she had never considered it.
Lulu looked back into Yuna's face with quiet concern, watching the play of emotions that was ranging across the girl, wondering what her next action would be. "Yuna?" she asked, tentatively.
Yuna broke down, feeling the tears flowing freely, and her breath caught in sobs. She wrapped her arms around Lulu's waist, rested her head in the mage's lap, and felt Lulu's fingers soothingly stroke her hair.
"Oh, Yuna. What happened?" Lulu asked gently, not ceasing in the motion of her hands.
So Yuna broke her self-imposed oath never to tell another living, or dead, soul of what had happened between herself and the Maester of Yevon, and began, her voice watery, to tell her friend everything.
**
It was the birds, Yuna had decided; the birds that sat in the meticulously maintained blossom trees outside of her window. They did so insist on singing. In the bright, fresh morning in the city of Bevelle, the sound of their chirruping sounded like taunting to Yuna, teasing her with a freedom she could not have, and in all likelihood would never have again. Even if she climbed out of the window, she would only find herself upon a balcony. Granted, it was a huge balcony that contained a garden, but it was still a garden that was suspended many stories above the ground.
She had a plan to survive such a jump, but she knew it would be futile. If she were to do that, she would never complete the mission she had assigned herself. She was trapped more by her duty than she was by the guards in the hallway, and the distance to the ground.
Perhaps the Maesters knew that. Perhaps that was why obvious security was absent.
Yuna's fingers plucked nervously at the bed coverings she sat upon, and even in her state of agitation she couldn't help but luxuriate in their softness; such a change from weeks of sleeping upon thin and ragged bedrolls in tents, often awakenings damp and sore after a night in the wild. Her body, unused to the gentle support, had rebelled, and now she was suffering from the most horrendous pain, the muscles in her neck having seized up and gone into spasm.
She got to her feet, striding over to the window, with every intention of slamming them closed, but stopped as her legs bumped into the window seat, staring out over the city. From here, she could see the ocean, and the sprawl of the city. She could see the gardens the likes of which couldn't be cultivated anywhere other than Bevelle, for the simple reason of the even present threat of Sin.
She sighed, feeling overwhelmed, and sat down dejectedly on the seat. Even if she succeeded in Sending Seymour, she would never escape here alive. Her death would bring one man to justice, but she would never defeat Sin. The world would continue to know the threat of the monster who killed and destroyed relentlessly. Perhaps one of the other Summoners would succeed, but what if they didn't?
It was a sort of arrogance, Yuna supposed, but one that Summoners needed. They had to be know beyond doubt that they would defeat Sin, otherwise they faltered, and could not go through with what had to be done.
She folded her hands in her lap, staring at her fingers. She felt miserable enough to cry.
Her head was brought up as she heard voices in the corridor, and thought they were passing guards until they stopped outside the door and sounded all too familiar. Yuna hastily swiped at her eyes with her sleeve to hide the tell-tale traces of burgeoning tears, and stood up as they door swung open to admit Maester Seymour.
"Sit down, Lady Yuna," he said, gesturing to the window seat which still bore the imprint of her weight amongst its cushions.
She did so. "I was not expecting to see you," she said, fighting the temptation to turn away and stare out at the trees so she wouldn't have to look at him. "As you were busy with your duties. Or so the ladies said." Those ladies being the gaggling mob that had come to measure her for her wedding gown two days earlier, and who couldn't stop talking about how marvellous it was that Yuna was marrying Seymour, and how they were all so jealous.
It had made Yuna want to seize her staff from where she had laid it folded against a wall and smack them individually over the head. Yevon had allowed her to keep the weapon, but Yuna suspected that it was only a display of the power they held over her. As far as they were concerned, even armed Yuna was no threat.
"My duties are not so pressing they forbid me time spent with my bride-to-be."
Yuna wondered if that insufferably smug tone had always been present in his voice, or he only felt secure enough to allow it to creep in now, when his path seemed certain. "Of course," she said, with a faint smile she was sure looked as false as it felt, "I am gratified."
This was perhaps the worst part. She had convinced him after he had kidnapped her from the Al-Bhed Home that she did mean to marry him, as she had stated at Macalania Temple. It had only been the interference of her Guardians that had made her feel compelled to change her mind. It wouldn't be until Yuna faced her namesake in Zanarkand and learned the truth behind the Final Summoning that she would realise why Seymour needed her to enter a bond with him willingly.
Now she did turn her head away and towards the window, wincing as the muscles in her neck protested at the moment and sent a sharp stab of pain through her temples. She raised her hand to her neck, feeling the knots in the muscles crunch as she pressed down on them. It wasn't much of a relief, but it was better than nothing.
"Are you well, my lady?" He asked, taking note of the way she attempted to work out the kink.
"It's just a little muscle pain. I will be fine." Yuna dropped her hand to her lap and attempted to dress her face in an expression that would be convincing for the lie she had just spun.
"Of course, but I would be remiss if I ignored it."
She was about to protest when she felt his fingers, thinner and more delicate looking than a Human's, but deceptive in their appearance of weakness, digging into her neck and shoulders. He moved his fingertips in rhythmic circles, careful not to catch her skin with his wicked looking nails. He sought out the knots of bunched muscle in sinew, rubbing at them until they started to smooth out.
In spite of herself, Yuna felt her body starting to relax, the relief from the nagging discomfort enough to overcome the tension she had felt at his touching her. Deciding, for a moment, that it would not harm her resolve to bring Jyscal's killer to justice, Yuna gave herself over the warm soothing sensation of the massage and let her head loll forward. A whispered spell, and the scent of fresh greens brought with it a lack of pain in her abused muscles.
Seymour was, Yuna decided, far too good at this.
She stood, dislodging his hands, unconsciously running her fingers over the skin he had been touching, the after-effect of the magic making her nerves tingle. "Thank you, Lord Seymour," she said, forcing herself to fold her hands before her.
"So formal?" Seymour asked, languidly taking up the seat she had just vacated. "We are to be wed tomorrow morning, Lady Yuna, surely such formalities should be put aside."
In truth Yuna liked the distance the formalities gave her, but she relented nonetheless. "I believe I can do that... Seymour."
He smiled at her. "Sit down, Yuna," he said, once again.
Yuna obeyed silently, refusing to allow herself to twist her fingers together as she wanted to, and had that problem solved when he clasped both of her hands in his, and tugged her closer, towards him.
"There is something I must tell you of," he said, and Yuna swallowed convulsively. She couldn't contemplate what he might want to say. Her mind was whirling too nervously for her to put together a coherent thought. Instead, she just nodded, indicating he should continue.
"There is," he said, "A tradition amongst the Guado. A marriage is, in itself, meaningless. But it does signify the recognition of a union between two people who have already bonded on the most intimate of levels."
Yuna opened her mouth, closed it again and swallowed, her eyes fixed upon their intertwined fingers as she tried to form a sentence. When she finally looked up, she saw Seymour gazing at her with thinly veiled amusement, though, it seemed, it was not malicious, but affectionate. She felt ill, and all she could see was Lady Nadim's face warning her of what was to be expected of a Summoner on her Pilgrimage.
Seymour, it seemed, took her silence for confusion, which was not too far from the truth, and continued, "Yuna, I speak of the intimacy that Humans know as the purview of the already wed, but the Guado consider a prerequisite. My lady, I would have us bind ourselves together in such a manner."
**
"And you BELIEVED him?"
Lulu, in spite of indicating she would remain quiet, apparently couldn't stop herself.
"Good grief, Yuna, I know you're young and inexperienced but I thought that you of all people had more sense than that! That has to be one of the most ridiculous-"
"Actually," Yuna said, the corners of her mouth twitching. "He wasn't lying. I looked it up. Later, of course, when we had escaped and resumed the Pilgrimage. Some of Rin's employees are very well educated on the matter of customs."
Lulu made incoherent sounds of disbelief, but fell silent again as Yuna carried on speaking.
**
Yuna licked her lips. "I am... flattered," she finally said, choosing her words carefully. "That you would consider our union a given."
"Not a given," Seymour corrected, "Merely a formality. A way to show Spira the joining between Summoner and Maester."
"A political alliance," Yuna said, inclining her head slightly. "It would give the people hope."
"I confess, Yuna," Seymour said. "I have rather become enamoured of your, your strength and courage. I would join you on your Pilgrimage, and follow you to Zanarkand itself and the Final Summoning."
Yuna almost jerked her hands away in shock, but managed to only flinch at that statement. "You would? But-" She calmed herself from her initial outburst and took a deep breath. "You are a Summoner as am I. You know that death awaits me beyond the Final Summoning."
Seymour looked a little distance, thinking of some other time perhaps. "I have walked the path of the Pilgrim," he said. "And know what awaits you. I would not wish you to face it alone."
Not knowing his reasoning at the time, Yuna wondered for a long moment whether he truly did wish to support her in this, whether his motives were truly altruistic. He may have killed Jyscal, but was that an anomaly?
No, she firmly told herself. He had killed Jyscal, and whether it was a single occurrence or not, he was a murderer. He was unsent, and as a Summoner, she was bound by Oath and Honour to see him to the Farplane. It was only the fact that it needed to be public that she endured this charade.
And so what else could she do, but indicate her acquiescence, with a nod of the head and a whispered word.
It wouldn't matter anyway.
The chirruping of the birds in the blossom trees made her glance towards them, no pain causing her to arrest the motion this time, and she watch a delicate looking bird with brown and blue features tending to a nest of eggs, and the mother that sat atop them. The delicate pink petals obscured her sight of them partially, but she could still see them.
"I had never thought this would happen," Yuna whispered, and then bit her lip, horrified she had spoken what she had intended to be a private thought out loud. Her head turned sharply, to see what Seymour's response to this would be.
"I profess to being curious," Seymour said, his thumb moving across the back of her hand.
Yuna offered a tremulous smile. "What of, my lord?"
"No one," he asked, "Demanded your services on your journey thus far?"
Yuna's throat seemed parched of all moisture, and shook her head somewhat timidly.
"Ah, then I am glad for you," Seymour said, and she jerked her head up to stare at him.
He stroked her cheek and smiled at her shock. "That your innocence was not bartered for the Fayth, like cheap currency."
But that was what she was doing now, was it not? Exchanging her virtue for justice? For the chance to show to Spira exactly who Jyscal's killer was? Such a hurriedly thought-up plan, when she had discovered that it was Seymour who'd arrange for her 'liberation' from the Al-Bhed so that they could be wed under the gaze of Spira, and she had committed herself to carrying it through. Yuna was too well-trained in the obligations of duty to consider it an unfair trade.
Which was why, when Seymour leaned in towards her, his lips finding hers, that she did her best to swallow her revulsion at the fact she was engaged in a rather intimate embrace with a murderer and simply attempted not to think of much of anything for a while.
**
There wasn't the sound of speech between Lulu and Yuna after the latter had finished speaking. Yuna just laid there, head on Lulu's lap while the mage stroked her hair soothingly.
Finally, Lulu said, "You did what you had to."
"I know."
"None would blame you for it."
Yuna sighed and closed her eyes. "I know."
Perhaps Lulu was trying to convince herself of that, more than she was Yuna.
"Come on," she finally said, "Let's go back to the hut. You need to get changed out of those wet clothes."
**
When they got back to the hut, and Lulu had mothered Yuna appropriately, making her warm tea, finding her a change of clothes and disposing of her now rather wet and slimy nightgown in the laundry basket, Yuna felt rather a lot better than she had upon awakening that morning. Telling Lulu the story had freed her spirit immensely, and the road ahead did not look nearly so intimidating.
Lulu bit her lip anxiously, just as Yuna was starting to relax, immediately dispelling that soothing calm that she'd been feeling. "Yuna, I have to tell Wakka."
Yuna looked up at her, before glancing away again.
"I think he deserves to know," Lulu continued, "He has been your staunch guardian since before your Pilgrimage. Would you have him find out later, and find out that you hid this knowledge from him?"
Yuna hesitated, and then shook her head. "Of course not, Lulu. Wakka deserves far more than that. You all do." She tightened her grip around her warm tea that was almost gone, leaving only the dregs and the sediment collecting in the bottom of the mug. "You can tell him. I don't think I have the strength to."
Lulu smiled, but it was one without any humour, and her eyes were sad.
It was much later in the day, when Yuna had retired to her bed, emotional exhaustion translating itself into physical, that Lulu found herself standing outside Wakka's hut, trying to think of how best to broad the subject with him. She couldn't think of how best to start, and Marta, the former Apprentice Summoner who had begun working with one of the seamstresses, was giving her increasingly odder looks the longer that Lulu lingered there.
When she finally gathered up enough courage to push back the curtain and step inside, having decided to wait and see how the conversation evolved, she was rather disappointed when she discovered that he wasn't actually inside. Feeling unaccountably disgruntled, she stood in the middle of his floor, arms folded and glaring at the doorway, waiting for him to return and trying not to turn Yuna's situation over and over again in her mind.
So when Wakka did return to his home, after having spent the morning on the beach helping the fishermen repair nets, he wondered what he had done wrong to earn Lulu's ire. "Lu?" he asked, nervously.
"Where have you been? Never mind." She cut him off even as he opened his mouth to speak her. "You're never around when I need you to be."
Wakka rather thought that this was a little unfair on Lulu's part, but since something was obviously distressing her, he ignored it. "Want some tea? I got some breads from the baker, but, I don' know, he's doing something funny to his dough. Tastes strange, ya know? I've half a mind to say so, I do..."
Lulu had wilted by this point, her irritation dispelling as easily as the wind blows away the clouds. "Wakka," she said tiredly, sitting herself on his bed, "Will you listen? I have to tell you something. It's about Yuna."
Wakka turned back from the stove he had crossed towards, moving to her side and sitting down next to her, folding an arm around her shoulders. "What is it, Lu?"
Taking a deep breath, Lulu began to tell her friend everything, leaving nothing out of what she had been told, and doing her best to ignore the shock that had stole onto Wakka's features and remained there throughout her telling.
It never occurred to Lulu, though, that someone else might be listening to the tale.
- End of Part Five