Author's Note: Because I've been asked, no, this isn't a Baralai X OC fic. It's more personal development of the praetor-boy on his own, but it's still in lines with Blind Spot. Apologies to people waiting for Paine; all things in due time.

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My hair has dried from an impromptu dunking by the time I best the tower to the Founder's quarters. In accordance to Yevon rank, the chambers are chosen for the higher ranks are those rooms closest to the sky; not from any solid belief that priests were elevated spiritually, I've always suspected, but because you can keep better tabs of other people's affairs from such a spy-point.

Regardless of the actual reason, the haste of my journey leaves me with robes half-tied and the collar of my shirt sticking to the back of my neck. I take the last few steps to the uppermost walkway while fumbling the buttons of my sleeves and having to redo them twice.

The view from the heights reveals most of the temple spread out like a child's construction toy. From here, Bevelle becomes a religion made of sticks. Twigs, color glass, and paper dolls positioned at strategic intervals. Move the soldiers as suits your fancy. Ring the temple bells by a trigger to the side that only you can see, and claim it is an Aeon's snore.

Side-benefits of so many stairs to climb include the fact that anyone foolish enough to seek you out will arrive panting, leaning on the walls to catch their breath from the long journey. The lift from the Highbridge dropped me only at the entrance to the tower that Trema has closeted himself in. By the time I arrive at the top, my chest heaving against the thin air, I already know I am late. Five minutes will kill me none the faster if I take advantage to rest first.

A fleeting desire for power touches me again while I lean on the balcony. My hands work to put my clothes into proper order. That makes it twice now this morn that I have wished for strength. In this instance, I admit that revenge upon the guard who delayed his message to me would be a very sweet act indeed. At the least, I might look more presentable for my execution than with my shirt improperly tucked into my pants.

Rather than entertain vengeance on a man whose face I do not even fully remember, I turn to thinking about my visit from Gella.

She is sturdy. This is the first impression called to mind whenever I sort through my conceptions of the Lustrum woman; sturdy, and well-used to enduring what cannot be fought against. Not the type to willingly invest herself in Bevelle's politics at all. Most definitely not the kind of person to let herself become easily flustered over anything.

But then, none of the Lustrum seem to be here of their own free choice. Dopha admitted to me once that his family had enrolled him in the temple because he was better suited to numbers than to hauling on fishing lines. Somasil attends because he wants to protect the one whom he loves; Gella herself says nothing of her own reasons for being here, but I have gathered that she does so for her own family back in her village. Even Shelinda is only pursuing this course because she does not know what to do with herself otherwise.

Is this what we are? New Yevon, a religion based around an empty center, without even an ocean-monster to hold us together? My fingers drum on my cheek as I rest my chin on a hand; if the Lustrum are the generation meant to succeed the current priests, none of us will have any direction for the future save to carry on the dying plots of previous years. We will graduate wrapped snug in silken politics, hatching later like overblown bugs to spin our own plots for acolytes to come.

I told Gella I would help stop this.

Why? Even for a lie of assurance, such a claim is illogical. I owe the Lustrum nothing. My involvement in the temple only concerns seeking information on the Den of Woe.

I am not here to save them. I couldn't even save my own friends. All I am here to do is to stop Nooj.

Somehow.

Below me, patrols change position in geometric lockstep. Gates strain open. A convoy trundles its way through the grit of the courtyards, yellow chocobo-splotches migrating in straight lines across the stones. The air is crisp from winter. It catches the rattling sounds of wooden wheels and bears them up into the sky, past me and into the faint clouds above.

My eyes track the dull colors as various priests congregate around the newly-arrived wagons. The banners trailing from the canvas canopies are colored a pale, waxy green, run through vertically with lines of white and black. Clumps of seed-shells are strung in crossing patterns over the sides of the carts; the practice is meant to ward off smaller fiends, so the superstition goes. Envoys from Larsolia come early, or at least their scout-guard.

Perhaps their appearance will save me from Trema.

I find myself chewing on the tip of my own finger, and take my hand away from my mouth.

Gella is sturdy. That is my first impression, and I do not ignore it. Yet the expression on her face when she spoke to me this morning was of a finely distilled desperation, and for all that she could not communicate it clearly, it must be very real.

There is a power in desperation. I have drunk of it before. It almost killed me in the Squad's final test, but now that emotion is the only strength I have when my resolve begins to flag, and I am tempted to give in to friendship once more.

The Lustrum are too much like my Team. But I do not need people. I will not. Friendship is a trap; it will blind you from the real danger that will one day shoot you in the back. No matter how I might wish for my own comrades, they are scattered and gone. I cannot let others near me. I will not.

If despair is my only ally, should I befriend it? Let it fill my heart and weave into every inch, lest I find my own weakness staring back at me one day from eyes the color of crimson?

I do not know what to do next. And there is no one left to ask.

Gippal, after all, is dead.

Does that mean that Paine is entirely alone now? Will Nooj find her, convince her to work with him? Would it not be for the best if I sought her out--the two of us could do it. We could help each other. Together.

I could find Paine. We would succeed.

Couldn't we?

These questions gnaw at me. I close my eyes, blot out Bevelle stretching itself like a paid courtesan below. Sounds paint a picture for me in the blackness behind my lids, highlighting the cries of the chocobo as their reins are taken up by stablehands. Proper pomp and circumstance is repeated again and again as the elders of Larsolia disembark and are greeted with fervor intended to make them forget their own dead. Winds rattling flag-cords against poles.

Footsteps moving on the walkway towards me.

I play at unawareness. My eyes remain shuttered; in a moment's time, I have my breathing steady and underneath control. I may have forestalled personal doom by admiring the view, but in dwelling on the turmoil of my thoughts, I quite likely just made everything worse. How late must I be now?

Late enough. Maybe I can blame it on not wanting to intrude until directly summoned. By the same ludicrous reasoning, if I stand still for long enough, Trema might just mistake me for part of the scenery.

"Are you thinking, mm, about making a jump?"

The brittle question slices through my reflection. By the ancient's quaver, I know without having to open my eyes that it is the Founder who stands behind me.

"No. My lord," formality encourages me to add. In the same motion of opening my eyes, I am already turning, already bowing with my face directed to the floor. "Please pardon me for my delay, lord Trema, I was only noting the arrival of the envoy from Lars--"

"Of course you were." The answer does not satisfy Trema. He knows my lie, watches it squirm across the floor like an albino snake confused in the day's light. "Walk with me, boy."

In the Founder's presence, my arm has begun to ache. The pain pulses in time with my heart; I keep my elbow gingerly to my side despite how it makes the ritual bow of obedience somewhat awkward. There are no guards stationed directly upon Trema's towerheights, but if I pushed him off, I am certain the ones from the Highbridge would see. Even despite the distraction of Larsolia's elders.

Instead, I listen. Falling into step behind the priest keeps my thoughts to themselves for a time; I am not obligated to supply the conversation so long as I am subordinate. Until I know what motivates Trema, the excuse I will conjure for my act of theft must be vague enough to place blame equally on everything and everyone.

The Founder begins once we have rounded a full quarter of the tower, pacing so that the main courtyards are out of sight. "To say that we are in a... mm, a unique situation, that would not be so very far off." His fingers, spotted with age, rub against themselves where he holds them to the small of his back. They remind me of tiny, withered lizards. "You are a bright fellow, young man. You have a future ahead of you, that much is possible. Have you... hm, given much thought to that?"

Trema's words all ring standard, save for the twists which turn them sinister. His verbal tics are obfuscation. Bombarded by his hemming and hawing, I almost miss the actual warnings slipped in as neatly as a thief during dinner to steal the forks.

I am forced to remind myself that Trema is a man who had played the game of priests and won; my continual impatience with the deliberate pace of his words is no doubt encouraged by his own habits. I must best myself if I am to be the victor, master my own impulses. I must, "Yes, sir," come up with much better lines than that.

The very fact that my silence was broken with only two short sounds is enough. I lack a cunning means to change from defense to attack, and now we both know it.

Trema maintains the advantage.

He enjoys it, savors the moment, moves his folded hands in the same rubbing as a pair of nesting doves. "You give me a very... difficult choice, mm, Baralai. It was Baralai, wasn't it?" He does not wait for my acknowledgement before continuing. "Most would have fled Bevelle. But you… you remain. How strange. How, hm... very strange indeed."

I cannot decide if his extended prelude to actual interrogation is meant to distract me, or to lull me into a drone-induced slumber. As of yet, I have no hints to the Founder's inner motives. Agendas are common; he must have at least half a dozen. I need to know them all before I can make my own foray.

He surprises me. The next question is direct, and it cuts through the haze of the faux-wandering conversation; stopping as he speaks, Trema almost has me collide with him before I can stop myself. Even with reflex saving me, I am confronted with something very close to a glare when he turns. The proximity fills my nose with the smell of moth-spray and mold. "I know you think you are strong enough to win against the temples, boy, and get away before they catch you. Sphere theft isn't half of it. What else are you are trying to find here?"

To be asked such a thing is laughable. Trema saw the sphere with his own eyes. Having to clarify further is like being forced to narrate your own execution, conjure stage directions for the theater production detailing your death. The script is predictable. Insert numerous soliloquies from Nooj, a comedic interlude from Gippal. Then exit Paine, stage left.

I have always hated Macalanian epics.

Assaulted by the imbalance of Trema's vocal patterns, my thoughts refuse to organize themselves back into the order I have always coaxed them to dance along. I get as far as, "Maester Kinoc..." before the pang in my arm reminds me of what happened the last time I attempted such an excuse.

Trema has more patience for me today. I assume so because he does not reach out to attack me. Instead he watches me scrape for my own falsehoods, and I attempt to cover up a wince.

One maester's plans against another won me into Seymour's graces. I do not know what Trema's opinion is of either priest; scapegoating the half-Guado has won me numerous saving graces, but there is resistance in me to try such an angle again. Guilt is not a part of this equation. I know that Seymour would have used me just as ruthlessly if he had lived to see the opportunity.

I try again. "The Crimson Squad, sir." Fear of a very primal sort is encouraging my voice to be polite. "I was... acquainted with it. After what Maester Kinoc had done, and then Maester Seymour, I didn't know who to trust. I… I was afraid. Afraid that someone else would find out about the Squad, and then they'd come for me. I wanted to make sure that no one else would try to threaten me with it. That's all. I didn't have any reason other than that. And since the spheres were recorded with me in them... I thought, they were partially mine, weren't they?"

There is enough truth in my words to lend them sincerity. I have used this trick before. Slanted veracity, a grain of fact to layer the pearl of story upon; this won me entrance to the Lustrum, and, I suspect, was also the method that Nooj used with the Squad. Never mind that there is implication within the one Trema viewed to turn me back towards conspiracy against Yevon. This cannot be the end of the interrogation; I have higher of an opinion of the Founder's experience of subterfuge than that.

Trema studies me for a long stretch of heartbeat-seconds, my pulse counting out what might be the few minutes left for my existence. Then he turns away. Relieved from the weight of his narrowed eyes, I draw in a deep breath through my nose and realize he is beginning to once more walk.

We travel in silence for another quarter of the tower, journeying up the slow ascent to the final chambers.

"The Crimson Squad was a failure," Trema states at last, his words ponderous, resuming their former gravity at a pace heavy enough to crush and kill. "New Yevon needs no such reminder of its past to weigh it down further while it remains but a babe in its crib. Those who... mm, those who think that now is the time to take advantage of its youth... are threats that I cannot tolerate."

This is not an angle I have predicted. Never in my previous calculations did I guess that Trema might actually care for the organization he had scraped together from the ruins of its parent; Yevon, for all its minor change in name, is still Yevon to the core. Even presented with such a statement, my mind turns it over to look for the real meaning. Does he think that I would try to extort the priests with knowledge of the Squad? Or does Trema only say such a thing to watch how I will respond to being called a danger?

Trema is reaching out to push apart the doors to the chamber we have stopped in front of. My chin jerks up; I look immediately for a glimpse of the room beyond as the portal winces open, even as my mind still untangles the possible layers of the Founder's conversation. "I don't want to destroy New Yevon. Far from it," my voice adds for me, the same impulses that swore me to Gella this morning rather than have her start to doubt. My mouth might know its business better than I do, but I wish it would explain to me before it makes promises. "Yevon is gone. Those who I might have held a grudge against... are dead. I want to move past that. I want to be able to keep going with my life now that the Calm is here, but I don't..." think, watch Trema, keep talking, "I just don't want to have to have my past haunting me like this."

Now it is the Founder's turn to not spare his regard for me, stepping into the room and walking onwards without waiting to see if I will follow. He does not need to. Trema is fully aware that there is nowhere for me to run save down the multifold stairs, and only a long and fatal descent through thin air should I try to leap to invisible freedom. My hands catch at the doors and draw them closed behind us both; I secure the latches without looking at them, my back to the engraved wood while I dare not expose it to the Founder. Carvings of dead Fayth are my companions as I finish and lean against the door. I feel the masterwork articulation of their frozen screams against my spine.

We are in Trema's study. Shelves stud the walls, reaching up to the ceiling in places and accessible by the wheeled stepstool set to the side of the thicker carpets. All are filled with books and boxes. Placenames are scrawled across the latter in a heavy hand, letters thick and slashing; I read the mark of villages I have never seen, and others often visited. Djose. Luca. Besaid. And more, many more, stretching out all through the room to where they are stacked atop one another in the corners.

The gleam of sphere-crystal leaks through the slatted wood of the nearest containers while I stare at the collections. These cannot be all that Bevelle has collected. I have only been here for three months and have already lost track of the shipments being delivered to the temple.

Come to think of it, where are all the spheres being held?

"Troublesome, indeed." Trema's voice drags me once more out of my own thoughts and fastens my attention to him. While I have been distracted, the Founder has seated himself at his desk. Whorled wood cradles his elder's frame. I find that I am no less wary of the man for all that he is sitting down, and particularly not when he is searching in the drawers, hands hidden and away from my sight. "Your reasons still do not excuse your crime. You meddle with a much greater threat than you know, hm, Baralai. We shall see if you can yet survive it."

With that, the man straightens up, unfolding a parcel of cloth as he does. Crimson spills out from his hands and resolves itself into the boundaries of a sphere. Trema sets the orb upon his desk; my own guilt shines back at me, smug, cast in shades of red. I return only deadpan to it.

Trema continues to talk, content with his regulation to a secondary role in this invisible war of blame between the sphere and I. "You see, boy... you have tampered with records that are highly restricted. None of these spheres should be, ah... misplaced. Do you know why this is?"

My deadpan stare to the orb remains unbroken. "No, sir."

"The simplest of riddles." Some part of this series of entrapments is amusing the Founder. His tone has lightened to that of a particularly amused scholar, eager to discuss a complex--yet often unpracticed--equation. "Seal a secret with a secret. Quite appropriate, I would say, to adapt the same sphere energy-lock for a door outside of a temple's Trial. As it is... the cave that has been termed the Den of Woe has been a pox for some time for Bevelle. You have gathered this already from the records, haven't you?"

Now I am shunted to the position of student, simply by laying out an opportunity for Trema to teach. Having no reason to react, I only give him a nod of my head, my gaze flicking back to the man and finding yet no reason to flee.

He continues. Eagerly. "Others were sent into the Den of Woe, you see. To record the tally of the dead. I hear it was… mm, quite the interesting task to do so. It seems that the Squad served its purpose to appease the danger we knew was there. There is a creature... mm, a creature whose memory haunts that cave. Yevon never was able to search the Den for any length of time without having that being destroy the intruders. Hence the Squad was created, meant to be... hm, a distraction. Yes, a distraction," Trema decides, tasting the word as he rolls it around in his mouth with his tongue, "whose purpose was to feed the hunger of the fiend inside. Only the strongest could be expected to give it an adequate fight, play out its energies, you see. None of you were really supposed to be lucky enough to make it out alive, but even that was accounted for under Kinoc's estimations. But clearly," and now the Founder is looking at me, his voice fully bemused at the esoteric joke my life now makes, "Kinoc was... not perfect."

Nothing can be revealed by my face when Trema finishes speaking, because I feel nothing inside. Eyes obediently remain upon the elder priest. Ears repeat back Trema's words, telling me that yes, the truth that I expected all along was leagues beyond even what I might have dared accuse Yevon of.

I want to be surprised. I want it so much that I think I forget what surprise even is.

Trema reads my lack of reaction appropriately as shock. This is good, because for a time, I forget I have a mouth to speak with. He takes up the slack instead. "Yevon has wanted to banish this fiend for a very long time. The few survivors it has ever left always report the same tale. Feelings of... mm, negativity, and images of death. Of failure, of Bevelle's underground chambers... and pictures of a vast machina, big enough to be a monster to rival that of Sin itself."

That neatly, all the world stops in its spiral dance.

I end with it, mad laughter crawling into my mind and filling me up as surely as if I were drowning underwater. Yes, it had been like that. It had been like drowning. It had been like falling into the ocean at night and choking on the salt water, hallucinating waves of gunfire and the smell of a woman's hair.

"You know of that which I speak," Trema continues, soft and smug as he watches me frozen. "Don't you?"

Inhalations come with an effort. I force my lungs to work again, to remember that they are not filling with blood from being punctured by machina bullets. The first breath drawn is sharp, deep enough to dizzy me, and I exhale as slowly as possible before trying once more to live.

Now is enough time for my brain to recover. It stumbles on starting, tripping over numbed segments of thinking processes gone dead. "What is down there?" My question is a demand; I am out of line, but do not care. This is the answer I have been looking for. Even if Trema only presents the lure to me to see if I will condemn myself by leaping for it, I cannot help my own need to know.

The founder takes his time in his victory. He watches as my fists clench, as I fight down the panic that memory brings me, and then he finally answers.

"Vegnagun."