**
Part Ten: One Oath or Another
**
Coolness touched Yuna's face, easing the faint burning sensation that lingered behind her eyelids. She felt slightly sick and extremely groggy, and vaguely recognised the sensation as that of a rather forcibly imprinted sleep spell.
She murmured, trying to say something to whoever it was that was touching her.
"Lady Yuna?"
She had the vague though that she should fight, but the most she could manage was a weak, kittenish movement of her head. The coolness stopped and, for a moment, she regretted its loss.
She opened her eyed, squinting against the glare of the light, and swallowing against a parched throat. "Isaaru," she slurred.
"Hello again, my lady."
She was sure that she was hardly strong enough to push him away as she tried, but the former Summoner moved away nonetheless. Isaaru folded the cloth he had been daubing against her face, and laid it next to a small ornate bowl filled with water that sat by her bedside.
"You've been asleep for a long time," he said, getting up from where he had been kneeling beside her, picking up the bowl and cloth as he went. "I was rather concerned that the warrior monks had been overzealous in enchanting your slumber, and the magic had started to poison your body, sleep toxins building up." He gave her an amused look she could barely see. "I hear you put up a fair struggle."
Yuna said nothing, simply twitching in an attempt to judge the control she still possessed over her own limbs. In the meantime, Isaaru returned to her side and she felt the warm wash of an esuna spell, smelt the tangy citrus in the air, and felt appreciably better as the magic washed the last vestiges of the battle spell from her system.
She opened her eyes fully, more accustomed to the light now, and stared into the face of the softly spoken brown-haired Summoner who had once tried to kill her.
"I wonder that I should be surprised to see you here," she said throatily, finding her voice a hoarse shadow of its usual self. "Though perhaps I should not be so shocked."
"You have such a low opinion of me," he asked, "That you believe I was an enthusiastic participant in your abduction?"
Yuna stared at him levelly. "Are you?"
He returned her gaze without expression. "No," he said, and Yuna felt unaccountably relieved.
"I did not even know you were here," he continued, "Until they summoned me and my services as a mage trained in the Healing Arts." What went unsaid was that he certainly wasn't any use to Yevon as a Summoner any more.
The last time Yuna had seen Isaaru, he had been 'asked' to protect the city of Bevelle as the frightened Yevon church huddled, terrified, within its walls. They had spoken only briefly when she had arrived from Luca after addressing the people of Spira, and had seen neither sight nor sound of him thereafter. She had assumed that he and his brothers had gone home. She told him as much.
"Maroda and Pacce stayed in Bevelle to help the reconstruction after the devastation that Sin caused." Isaaru fiddled with the cloth, soaking it with fresh water and refilling the bowl from a silver jug that stood on a table nearby. "The church said that they still required my services, and so I came."
Yuna got the distinctive feeling that his presence in this place wasn't entirely of his own volition, though she didn't say anything of it. "Without second thoughts?" she asked.
Isaaru gave her a sidelong look and turned away. She thought for a moment that she had alienated him with her words, but after a few moments, he returned to her side, handing her a plain ceramic bowl which she took from him with a puzzled expression on her face.
"You'll need it in a minute," he said obscurely, as she pressed the cool bowl between her fingers, resting it atop her stomach. Isaaru shook his head, moving her hands so she rested the bowl beside her head.
"I have to tell you," he said, drawing up a thinly padded, but ornate, chair up to the beside, leaning back into its support and resting his elbows on the rests. To Yuna's admittedly hazy vision, he looked tired. "I am rather concerned, for your health that is."
"I've had etheric poisoning before," Yuna said, recalling one or two instances on her pilgrimage, during some of the hardest treks across Spira's lands. Attacked by fiend upon fiend before she had chance to rest and recuperate, she had found herself shivering and sweating when they had finally secured camp, her body coursing with alien magics. Lulu, their black mage, had found herself in such a state far more frequently, being sensitive to such things. "I'll live."
"That's not what I'm talking about," Isaaru said, and he wouldn't look her in the face.
Yuna's breath hitched in her throat. "You know," she said, a statement, not a question, and perhaps an accusation.
Isaaru hesitated, then nodded. "I had to scan you to ascertain your state of health. Noticing your... condition... was not difficult. Nor the usual circumstances surrounding the child." He looked at her then, and there was genuine concern in his eyes. "Hybrid births are difficult," he told her. "Both on the child and the mother. It's not unusual for one or both to die in the process."
Yuna shivered, feeling cold in the warmth of the room. "I have no intention of dying."
Isaaru's mouth twitched. "If it were anyone but you saying that, my lady, I might doubt them. But still, there is a reason for my presence here. And that is to see to your health."
"For as long as Yevon needs me healthy?"
Isaaru looked like he might have answered that, but Yuna's eyes widened as a rush of sweetness coated her tongue in cloying moisture, and she just about grabbed at the bowl Isaaru had handed her in time to prevent herself from expelling her stomach contents all over the bed sheets as her body purged itself of the last of the toxins. Feeling gravely embarrassed, she accepted the cloth and glass of water that Isaaru offered her to wash out her mouth, and slumped back upon the bed, not particularly feeling up to continuing the debate, and so falling silent.
So instead she watched Isaaru as he quietly moved around the room. She watched in fascination as he raised his hands over the basin, fingers twitching rhythmically. It wasn't until she saw the faint glow of blue threads looping over each other that she realised he was spell casting. She chanted, lining up poems and prose in her mind that served as a trigger for her spells, whereas Isaaru literally wove his spells out of the air itself. There was the sound of trickling water, and Isaaru used the water he had conjured to clean the bowl, before returning to her side.
"You should be alright now," he told her, placing a hand upon her forehead to gauge her temperature, nodding approvingly at what he found.
"No I won't," she croaked out, turning her head away and dislodging his hand. "I am still captive. And Yevon plots against myself and my child. I won't be alright until I go home and am free."
There was an awkward silence for a moment. "I'm sure the Priestess has her reasons." Isaaru said, finally, but Yuna could tell that he barely believed what he was saying himself.
She turned back towards him, clutching at the frayed edgings of the blankets that covered her up to her waist. "Help me," she pleaded, forcing herself to calmness in the face of his startled expression. "There's every chance I won't live if I'm forced to stay here. Help me leave this place."
"You ask a lot."
"I ask you to keep to the Healer's Oath that brings you here to see to me," Yuna said, urgently, struggling to raise herself so she could look at him properly. She could only just prop herself up on her elbows. "To keep the living to life, and to spare suffering that is preventable."
Isaaru stared at her for a very long time, and then glanced down at the glass of water in his hands, as if he'd forgotten that he was holding it. He set it down beside her bed. "I have to go," he said, before turning on his heel and striding firmly from the room.
Yuna sunk back into the thick mattress, pulling the blankets up to her chin and closing her eyes.
After a while, she opened her eyes to slits, and glanced around the room. Satisfied that no one was watching her, she rested a hand on her abdomen, stroking the skin slowly, before closing her eyes again and sleeping.
**
"What exactly was the point of leaving Besaid in the first place?"
Rikku's question was shouted as she tried to keep up with the strides of the elder two Guardians as they passed along the waterfall lined pathways on the route to Besaid village. Both Lulu and Wakka had unhappy expressions on their faces, a fact which didn't deter Rikku as she continued talking.
"We have all sorts of gizmos on the ship that could help us look for Yunie. Why are we wasting our time around here?"
"What else do you suggest, Rikku?" Lulu said, sharply, as she stopped in her tracks, turning towards the young Al-Bhed. Rikku nearly ran straight into her, not having expected Lulu to halt. "We have no other avenues to pursue. She's not in Bevelle, and we can't simply scour Spira at random until she's found. She might-" Lulu broke off, before she took a deep breath and continued in a calmer tone. "She might not have the time."
Rikku bit her lip, averting her eyes. The thought that Yuna might be killed by whoever had taken her wasn't one that she particularly wanted to consider. After all they had gone through to save her from Sin, and the Final Summoning, it would be cruel beyond words to lose her to something so mundane as normal Spirans.
Wakka spoke, his voice softer than Lulu's, entreaty in his tone, as if trying to make Rikku see the wisdom in his words. "We know that someone from here passed on the message that Yuna was going to be in Guadosalam. It was probably someone at the Temple, ya? Maybe if we find them, they'll tell us who the kidnappers were. It's a start."
"A good idea. If we don't have any luck, we should travel to Isalva, see if the healer who was seeing to Yuna is there and can be of use."
"Why would the healer be useful?" Rikku asked with a frown.
Lulu opened her mouth, debating about her response, until she was cut off by Wakka's sudden, and loud, "Hey! You!"
Across the square, a girl looked up, spied the Guardians, and started, jumping backwards, clutching her woven reed basket to her chest and looking desperately like she wanted to run. She glanced around helplessly for an escape route as the three came over, boxing her against the side of a hut.
"We'd like to talk to you," Lulu said, folding her arms and glowering at the girl.
Marta went pale, skin whitening underneath her island tan. "I've already told you what I know." Her eyes skittered sideways, checking to see if anyone was approaching. "The seamstress was angry, you know. She overheard us. Now the whole village is mad at me." The girl sounded so devoutely miserable that it almost made one feel sorry for her.
"What a pity," Rikku said, not showing an ounce of that same pity.
"Well, if you'd be so kind as to direct us to those you spoke to," Lulu said, "We'll happily keep out of your way."
"The one I spoke to was Vidrani, an acolyte" Marta said, running a hand nervously over her hair as she rattled off the information. "But he was transferred out of here not long after I told him. I guess it was to Bevelle or something. Or he might have told someone on the ship, I just don't know! Why can't you leave me alone?"
"Because," Lulu said, in a low voice. "The High Summoner of Spira has been kidnapped, she whose Calm through which we pass. And it is your fault this has happened."
"You're not doing very well so far with what I did tell you," Marta said, sourly. "Are you sure you're trying hard enough?"
Wakka made an incoherent sound of annoyance, and looked ready to pitch his blitzball at the girl's head in retaliation.
"The fact that you have just insulted our Guardianship is something I will ignore, for now," Lulu continued in that same dangerous tone. "As long as you're telling us everything."
"For all you know, she wasn't kidnapped," Marta spat, her voice rising with every word. "She probably wanted to get away from you people, who don't know when to leave someone alone!" Her voice ended on a shriek, and she lashed out, catching Rikku in the shoulder and causing the girl to stagger back, giving enough space for her to squeeze through and run. Her sudden push through the gap caused her to drop her basket, and the scraps of Besaid cloth contained within fluttered to the ground, some being caught in updrafts and being carried a fair way across the village. She left this trail in her wake as she fled, disappearing behind the temple to where her home was no doubt located.
Around them, villagers, for who gossip was as essential to life as the fish they ate, were staring at them, muttering and whispering to eat other. There was no doubt the scene had caused quite a stir. What was going on, the villagers no doubt wondered.
Lulu sighed minutely, turning away from the curiosity of the villagers. "We're not doing any good around here. Let's find somewhere to sit and plan what to do next."
She didn't meet much argument from the others, and they started wending their way through the clusters of homes to where Yuna's home sat, nestled amongst a little grove of tall and narrow-leafed trees.
Rikku bit her lip and spoke into the silence between them. "Yuna doesn't have a lot of time, does she?"
Wakka opened his mouth, before closing it again and glancing away, as if not particularly keen on giving the idea any thought. Rikku could understand his feelings, but as she could imagine was what was happening to Yuna wherever she was. It was her fault her cousin had been taken after all.
"There's no way to know," Lulu said, softly, and Rikku could hear the anxiety in the mage's voice. "Which is why we need to find her soon."
"We're not exactly having a lot of luck." Rikku wanted to say something about how they couldn't just keep looking for someone who knew something. They needed to go and hunt Yuna down, and the people who took her. But the fact that false trails had been set up in every direction meant that it was nearly impossible. Even the people in Guadosalam had no luck, those who had been chasing the kidnappers having been struck flash-blind from a series of thunder strikes to close to them. Rikku had no doubt that whoever had kidnapped Yuna had thrown off the pursuit far too easily. "It's not right."
Lulu stopped, and turned to face her. "Rikku-"
"It's not!" The girl stamped her foot in frustration, uncaring for the moment that she was acting like a child. "We go to so much trouble to save Yunie, and then this happens. Why does the world have to be so unfair..." she trailed off miserably.
Wakka reached around, putting and arm around her shoulders and giving her a reassuring hug. "We'll find her, ya? And when we do, we'll make them all sorry they ever went near her."
Lulu made a sharp gesture, and Rikku was about to question it, when she caught sight of Yevon robes, and heard the swish of the acolyte's footsteps as the cloth rustled about his legs, and took the sign for what it was: the indication that they should be silent. The Yevonite didn't even glance at them as he strode forward, almost as if they weren't there. On his way, his shoulder knocked into Rikku, and his hand smacked into her midsection as he almost pushed her to the ground.
Rikku's hands clutched at her stomach, and she groaned in pain, nearly doubling over as the impact jarred the still painful muscles. "Hey!" She snapped out, when she had regained enough breath to do so, "Watch where you're going, you big jerk!"
But the Yevonite was gone out of sight, having disappeared in the narrow gap between two huts and gone before any of the trio could realise his intentions.
"I guess some things never change," muttered Lulu, no doubt thinking in her mind of Yevon attitudes to the Al-Bhed, but when she turned towards Rikku, the girl did not seem upset. Instead she was looking at her cupped hands in surprise.
When Rikku's hands had gone up to clutch at her stomach in reflex at the impact, she had also grabbed onto the cold and smooth object which had been shoved into her hands by the young acolyte who had been so rude. Pulling her hands away, she found that she was holding a small recording sphere. It couldn't contain much information, being only a cheaply available visual recording sphere, but Rikku held the sphere up so they could all see it, and thumbed the activation switch.
Shelinda's nervous, halting voice, floating ethereally through the air about them. "Honoured Guardians," she was saying, "I'm entrusting this to a friend of mine because..." The image of the Yevonite wrung her hands anxiously. "Because what's happening... it's wrong. I need to tell you about Lady Yuna, about what they've done with her... what they're going to do with her..."
**
Aboard the airship, Cid and three Al Bhed engineers were engaged in a detailed diagnostic investigation of certain portions of the engine room which were not entirely in perfect working order. Even after possessing the ship all these weeks, it seemed that there was always more things to be found, and, indeed, more things to be going wrong.
"What about that bit?"
"Nope. That's supposed to be there."
"You sure?"
"Nope."
"Never a damned manual when you need one," Cid groused, wiping hands covered in grease on his trouser legs, though the streaks left were invisible among the rest of the grease there.
"It'd be a thousand years old," one of the engineers said, most of his upper body inserted into a hydraulic assembly as he tried to reach a particularly awkward bolt. "What's to say you could read it?"
"Didn't you know?" Another said, a female tapping a heavy adjustable wrench against her thigh as she smirked in amusement. "Our Cid's omniscient."
Cid stared at her. "What?"
"All-knowing."
He cleared his throat. "Damn straight."
From behind them there came a thud that rattled the grating that wasn't very well attached to the deck. Cid turned in time to see a female technician he'd left on the bridge bend down to pick up a ration bar that she'd apparently dropped in her rapid and heavy descent down the ladder. She brushed at it in an attempt to clean the dirt off it as she approached the Al-Bhed leader.
"Why don't you use the damned intercom? And I told you people to stop sliding down the ladders!"
The tech shrugged unrepentantly. "Broken, but then what isn't. We've lost contact with one of the survey teams we dropped off in the west," As she spoke, she chewed on her snack with a vapid expression on her face. "What do we do?"
Cid folded his arms, scowling in disapproval at the tech as if by sheer force of will he could cower her into summoning up a communication from their missing team. The tech, for her part, remained immovable in the face of Cid's glare, masticating noisily. Finally, the Al Bhed leader sighed. "Redirect team three over to their last known location. Probably a faulty transmitter."
"Sure thing," said the tech, taking another bite and munching on it as she headed back to the bridge to contact the other teams.
- End of Part Ten
Part Ten: One Oath or Another
**
Coolness touched Yuna's face, easing the faint burning sensation that lingered behind her eyelids. She felt slightly sick and extremely groggy, and vaguely recognised the sensation as that of a rather forcibly imprinted sleep spell.
She murmured, trying to say something to whoever it was that was touching her.
"Lady Yuna?"
She had the vague though that she should fight, but the most she could manage was a weak, kittenish movement of her head. The coolness stopped and, for a moment, she regretted its loss.
She opened her eyed, squinting against the glare of the light, and swallowing against a parched throat. "Isaaru," she slurred.
"Hello again, my lady."
She was sure that she was hardly strong enough to push him away as she tried, but the former Summoner moved away nonetheless. Isaaru folded the cloth he had been daubing against her face, and laid it next to a small ornate bowl filled with water that sat by her bedside.
"You've been asleep for a long time," he said, getting up from where he had been kneeling beside her, picking up the bowl and cloth as he went. "I was rather concerned that the warrior monks had been overzealous in enchanting your slumber, and the magic had started to poison your body, sleep toxins building up." He gave her an amused look she could barely see. "I hear you put up a fair struggle."
Yuna said nothing, simply twitching in an attempt to judge the control she still possessed over her own limbs. In the meantime, Isaaru returned to her side and she felt the warm wash of an esuna spell, smelt the tangy citrus in the air, and felt appreciably better as the magic washed the last vestiges of the battle spell from her system.
She opened her eyes fully, more accustomed to the light now, and stared into the face of the softly spoken brown-haired Summoner who had once tried to kill her.
"I wonder that I should be surprised to see you here," she said throatily, finding her voice a hoarse shadow of its usual self. "Though perhaps I should not be so shocked."
"You have such a low opinion of me," he asked, "That you believe I was an enthusiastic participant in your abduction?"
Yuna stared at him levelly. "Are you?"
He returned her gaze without expression. "No," he said, and Yuna felt unaccountably relieved.
"I did not even know you were here," he continued, "Until they summoned me and my services as a mage trained in the Healing Arts." What went unsaid was that he certainly wasn't any use to Yevon as a Summoner any more.
The last time Yuna had seen Isaaru, he had been 'asked' to protect the city of Bevelle as the frightened Yevon church huddled, terrified, within its walls. They had spoken only briefly when she had arrived from Luca after addressing the people of Spira, and had seen neither sight nor sound of him thereafter. She had assumed that he and his brothers had gone home. She told him as much.
"Maroda and Pacce stayed in Bevelle to help the reconstruction after the devastation that Sin caused." Isaaru fiddled with the cloth, soaking it with fresh water and refilling the bowl from a silver jug that stood on a table nearby. "The church said that they still required my services, and so I came."
Yuna got the distinctive feeling that his presence in this place wasn't entirely of his own volition, though she didn't say anything of it. "Without second thoughts?" she asked.
Isaaru gave her a sidelong look and turned away. She thought for a moment that she had alienated him with her words, but after a few moments, he returned to her side, handing her a plain ceramic bowl which she took from him with a puzzled expression on her face.
"You'll need it in a minute," he said obscurely, as she pressed the cool bowl between her fingers, resting it atop her stomach. Isaaru shook his head, moving her hands so she rested the bowl beside her head.
"I have to tell you," he said, drawing up a thinly padded, but ornate, chair up to the beside, leaning back into its support and resting his elbows on the rests. To Yuna's admittedly hazy vision, he looked tired. "I am rather concerned, for your health that is."
"I've had etheric poisoning before," Yuna said, recalling one or two instances on her pilgrimage, during some of the hardest treks across Spira's lands. Attacked by fiend upon fiend before she had chance to rest and recuperate, she had found herself shivering and sweating when they had finally secured camp, her body coursing with alien magics. Lulu, their black mage, had found herself in such a state far more frequently, being sensitive to such things. "I'll live."
"That's not what I'm talking about," Isaaru said, and he wouldn't look her in the face.
Yuna's breath hitched in her throat. "You know," she said, a statement, not a question, and perhaps an accusation.
Isaaru hesitated, then nodded. "I had to scan you to ascertain your state of health. Noticing your... condition... was not difficult. Nor the usual circumstances surrounding the child." He looked at her then, and there was genuine concern in his eyes. "Hybrid births are difficult," he told her. "Both on the child and the mother. It's not unusual for one or both to die in the process."
Yuna shivered, feeling cold in the warmth of the room. "I have no intention of dying."
Isaaru's mouth twitched. "If it were anyone but you saying that, my lady, I might doubt them. But still, there is a reason for my presence here. And that is to see to your health."
"For as long as Yevon needs me healthy?"
Isaaru looked like he might have answered that, but Yuna's eyes widened as a rush of sweetness coated her tongue in cloying moisture, and she just about grabbed at the bowl Isaaru had handed her in time to prevent herself from expelling her stomach contents all over the bed sheets as her body purged itself of the last of the toxins. Feeling gravely embarrassed, she accepted the cloth and glass of water that Isaaru offered her to wash out her mouth, and slumped back upon the bed, not particularly feeling up to continuing the debate, and so falling silent.
So instead she watched Isaaru as he quietly moved around the room. She watched in fascination as he raised his hands over the basin, fingers twitching rhythmically. It wasn't until she saw the faint glow of blue threads looping over each other that she realised he was spell casting. She chanted, lining up poems and prose in her mind that served as a trigger for her spells, whereas Isaaru literally wove his spells out of the air itself. There was the sound of trickling water, and Isaaru used the water he had conjured to clean the bowl, before returning to her side.
"You should be alright now," he told her, placing a hand upon her forehead to gauge her temperature, nodding approvingly at what he found.
"No I won't," she croaked out, turning her head away and dislodging his hand. "I am still captive. And Yevon plots against myself and my child. I won't be alright until I go home and am free."
There was an awkward silence for a moment. "I'm sure the Priestess has her reasons." Isaaru said, finally, but Yuna could tell that he barely believed what he was saying himself.
She turned back towards him, clutching at the frayed edgings of the blankets that covered her up to her waist. "Help me," she pleaded, forcing herself to calmness in the face of his startled expression. "There's every chance I won't live if I'm forced to stay here. Help me leave this place."
"You ask a lot."
"I ask you to keep to the Healer's Oath that brings you here to see to me," Yuna said, urgently, struggling to raise herself so she could look at him properly. She could only just prop herself up on her elbows. "To keep the living to life, and to spare suffering that is preventable."
Isaaru stared at her for a very long time, and then glanced down at the glass of water in his hands, as if he'd forgotten that he was holding it. He set it down beside her bed. "I have to go," he said, before turning on his heel and striding firmly from the room.
Yuna sunk back into the thick mattress, pulling the blankets up to her chin and closing her eyes.
After a while, she opened her eyes to slits, and glanced around the room. Satisfied that no one was watching her, she rested a hand on her abdomen, stroking the skin slowly, before closing her eyes again and sleeping.
**
"What exactly was the point of leaving Besaid in the first place?"
Rikku's question was shouted as she tried to keep up with the strides of the elder two Guardians as they passed along the waterfall lined pathways on the route to Besaid village. Both Lulu and Wakka had unhappy expressions on their faces, a fact which didn't deter Rikku as she continued talking.
"We have all sorts of gizmos on the ship that could help us look for Yunie. Why are we wasting our time around here?"
"What else do you suggest, Rikku?" Lulu said, sharply, as she stopped in her tracks, turning towards the young Al-Bhed. Rikku nearly ran straight into her, not having expected Lulu to halt. "We have no other avenues to pursue. She's not in Bevelle, and we can't simply scour Spira at random until she's found. She might-" Lulu broke off, before she took a deep breath and continued in a calmer tone. "She might not have the time."
Rikku bit her lip, averting her eyes. The thought that Yuna might be killed by whoever had taken her wasn't one that she particularly wanted to consider. After all they had gone through to save her from Sin, and the Final Summoning, it would be cruel beyond words to lose her to something so mundane as normal Spirans.
Wakka spoke, his voice softer than Lulu's, entreaty in his tone, as if trying to make Rikku see the wisdom in his words. "We know that someone from here passed on the message that Yuna was going to be in Guadosalam. It was probably someone at the Temple, ya? Maybe if we find them, they'll tell us who the kidnappers were. It's a start."
"A good idea. If we don't have any luck, we should travel to Isalva, see if the healer who was seeing to Yuna is there and can be of use."
"Why would the healer be useful?" Rikku asked with a frown.
Lulu opened her mouth, debating about her response, until she was cut off by Wakka's sudden, and loud, "Hey! You!"
Across the square, a girl looked up, spied the Guardians, and started, jumping backwards, clutching her woven reed basket to her chest and looking desperately like she wanted to run. She glanced around helplessly for an escape route as the three came over, boxing her against the side of a hut.
"We'd like to talk to you," Lulu said, folding her arms and glowering at the girl.
Marta went pale, skin whitening underneath her island tan. "I've already told you what I know." Her eyes skittered sideways, checking to see if anyone was approaching. "The seamstress was angry, you know. She overheard us. Now the whole village is mad at me." The girl sounded so devoutely miserable that it almost made one feel sorry for her.
"What a pity," Rikku said, not showing an ounce of that same pity.
"Well, if you'd be so kind as to direct us to those you spoke to," Lulu said, "We'll happily keep out of your way."
"The one I spoke to was Vidrani, an acolyte" Marta said, running a hand nervously over her hair as she rattled off the information. "But he was transferred out of here not long after I told him. I guess it was to Bevelle or something. Or he might have told someone on the ship, I just don't know! Why can't you leave me alone?"
"Because," Lulu said, in a low voice. "The High Summoner of Spira has been kidnapped, she whose Calm through which we pass. And it is your fault this has happened."
"You're not doing very well so far with what I did tell you," Marta said, sourly. "Are you sure you're trying hard enough?"
Wakka made an incoherent sound of annoyance, and looked ready to pitch his blitzball at the girl's head in retaliation.
"The fact that you have just insulted our Guardianship is something I will ignore, for now," Lulu continued in that same dangerous tone. "As long as you're telling us everything."
"For all you know, she wasn't kidnapped," Marta spat, her voice rising with every word. "She probably wanted to get away from you people, who don't know when to leave someone alone!" Her voice ended on a shriek, and she lashed out, catching Rikku in the shoulder and causing the girl to stagger back, giving enough space for her to squeeze through and run. Her sudden push through the gap caused her to drop her basket, and the scraps of Besaid cloth contained within fluttered to the ground, some being caught in updrafts and being carried a fair way across the village. She left this trail in her wake as she fled, disappearing behind the temple to where her home was no doubt located.
Around them, villagers, for who gossip was as essential to life as the fish they ate, were staring at them, muttering and whispering to eat other. There was no doubt the scene had caused quite a stir. What was going on, the villagers no doubt wondered.
Lulu sighed minutely, turning away from the curiosity of the villagers. "We're not doing any good around here. Let's find somewhere to sit and plan what to do next."
She didn't meet much argument from the others, and they started wending their way through the clusters of homes to where Yuna's home sat, nestled amongst a little grove of tall and narrow-leafed trees.
Rikku bit her lip and spoke into the silence between them. "Yuna doesn't have a lot of time, does she?"
Wakka opened his mouth, before closing it again and glancing away, as if not particularly keen on giving the idea any thought. Rikku could understand his feelings, but as she could imagine was what was happening to Yuna wherever she was. It was her fault her cousin had been taken after all.
"There's no way to know," Lulu said, softly, and Rikku could hear the anxiety in the mage's voice. "Which is why we need to find her soon."
"We're not exactly having a lot of luck." Rikku wanted to say something about how they couldn't just keep looking for someone who knew something. They needed to go and hunt Yuna down, and the people who took her. But the fact that false trails had been set up in every direction meant that it was nearly impossible. Even the people in Guadosalam had no luck, those who had been chasing the kidnappers having been struck flash-blind from a series of thunder strikes to close to them. Rikku had no doubt that whoever had kidnapped Yuna had thrown off the pursuit far too easily. "It's not right."
Lulu stopped, and turned to face her. "Rikku-"
"It's not!" The girl stamped her foot in frustration, uncaring for the moment that she was acting like a child. "We go to so much trouble to save Yunie, and then this happens. Why does the world have to be so unfair..." she trailed off miserably.
Wakka reached around, putting and arm around her shoulders and giving her a reassuring hug. "We'll find her, ya? And when we do, we'll make them all sorry they ever went near her."
Lulu made a sharp gesture, and Rikku was about to question it, when she caught sight of Yevon robes, and heard the swish of the acolyte's footsteps as the cloth rustled about his legs, and took the sign for what it was: the indication that they should be silent. The Yevonite didn't even glance at them as he strode forward, almost as if they weren't there. On his way, his shoulder knocked into Rikku, and his hand smacked into her midsection as he almost pushed her to the ground.
Rikku's hands clutched at her stomach, and she groaned in pain, nearly doubling over as the impact jarred the still painful muscles. "Hey!" She snapped out, when she had regained enough breath to do so, "Watch where you're going, you big jerk!"
But the Yevonite was gone out of sight, having disappeared in the narrow gap between two huts and gone before any of the trio could realise his intentions.
"I guess some things never change," muttered Lulu, no doubt thinking in her mind of Yevon attitudes to the Al-Bhed, but when she turned towards Rikku, the girl did not seem upset. Instead she was looking at her cupped hands in surprise.
When Rikku's hands had gone up to clutch at her stomach in reflex at the impact, she had also grabbed onto the cold and smooth object which had been shoved into her hands by the young acolyte who had been so rude. Pulling her hands away, she found that she was holding a small recording sphere. It couldn't contain much information, being only a cheaply available visual recording sphere, but Rikku held the sphere up so they could all see it, and thumbed the activation switch.
Shelinda's nervous, halting voice, floating ethereally through the air about them. "Honoured Guardians," she was saying, "I'm entrusting this to a friend of mine because..." The image of the Yevonite wrung her hands anxiously. "Because what's happening... it's wrong. I need to tell you about Lady Yuna, about what they've done with her... what they're going to do with her..."
**
Aboard the airship, Cid and three Al Bhed engineers were engaged in a detailed diagnostic investigation of certain portions of the engine room which were not entirely in perfect working order. Even after possessing the ship all these weeks, it seemed that there was always more things to be found, and, indeed, more things to be going wrong.
"What about that bit?"
"Nope. That's supposed to be there."
"You sure?"
"Nope."
"Never a damned manual when you need one," Cid groused, wiping hands covered in grease on his trouser legs, though the streaks left were invisible among the rest of the grease there.
"It'd be a thousand years old," one of the engineers said, most of his upper body inserted into a hydraulic assembly as he tried to reach a particularly awkward bolt. "What's to say you could read it?"
"Didn't you know?" Another said, a female tapping a heavy adjustable wrench against her thigh as she smirked in amusement. "Our Cid's omniscient."
Cid stared at her. "What?"
"All-knowing."
He cleared his throat. "Damn straight."
From behind them there came a thud that rattled the grating that wasn't very well attached to the deck. Cid turned in time to see a female technician he'd left on the bridge bend down to pick up a ration bar that she'd apparently dropped in her rapid and heavy descent down the ladder. She brushed at it in an attempt to clean the dirt off it as she approached the Al-Bhed leader.
"Why don't you use the damned intercom? And I told you people to stop sliding down the ladders!"
The tech shrugged unrepentantly. "Broken, but then what isn't. We've lost contact with one of the survey teams we dropped off in the west," As she spoke, she chewed on her snack with a vapid expression on her face. "What do we do?"
Cid folded his arms, scowling in disapproval at the tech as if by sheer force of will he could cower her into summoning up a communication from their missing team. The tech, for her part, remained immovable in the face of Cid's glare, masticating noisily. Finally, the Al Bhed leader sighed. "Redirect team three over to their last known location. Probably a faulty transmitter."
"Sure thing," said the tech, taking another bite and munching on it as she headed back to the bridge to contact the other teams.
- End of Part Ten