The air is full of fish, scales rippling with light as they swim through the sky as easily as the ocean. Paine is shaking her head in my direction again and again. Her fingers fold on her crossed arms tight enough for the leather to protest.
The air is full of fish dancing, and I realize it is not me she is bothering to chide anymore.
Because I am gone.
I wake twitching.
Lucky enough to have a room by myself; the guards are housed together further down the hall, and no one has seen fit to establish a watch directly outside my door. If my sleeping habits are irregular, then none of them need know.
Leaving my window open overnight has resulted in curtains tangled around the latches. Gulls cry; the seaport is swathed in the grey light of dawn, but I can already hear pedestrians in motion, bantering back and forth in easy familiarity while they pass.
The innkeeper has breakfast out early. Luca, for all its luxury, rises no later than Bevelle; there is much to do before the heat of the day washes in even during this bridging between winter and spring, and the sooner one takes advantage of the cooler hours, the better. Breakfast here does not serve the purpose of trying to warm one's bones from pelting up and down ice-covered walkways. It is meant to remind a person that they are awake, alive, and above all, late for opening up their shops.
There is no communal morning gathering in Luca. After dipping a handtowel into the basin of water provided and scrubbing my face, I collect my satchel and head down the stairs. A few of the guards are already awake. I pass their assembly during my descent; two of them are still rumpled in hair and clothing both, one still dressed in white linen sleepware, and they flick embarrassed looks in my direction for their being out of uniform.
Rather than disapprove, I only return their unspoken apologies with a curious smile of my own. The guards look vulnerable without their heavy jackets, their sheets of body armor sewn into cloth folds. There is something very out of key with them this morning and I cannot figure it out; lingering on the stairwell, I watch as one guard fumbles in his pocket and passes over a comb to another.
Then I realize that my greatest shock comes from actually noticing their features. Lacking their helmets and machina guns, the protectors of Bevelle are reduced to mere humans again.
One of them can't be any older than I am.
I have never noticed that before.
The central sitting room is empty of any formal diners. A few other guests make their appearance as I stand in a doorway, entering from opposite halls just long enough to scoop up breakfast before exiting once more. I fiddle with a final button of my clothes and proceed to do the same.
Slices of melon have been left out alongside a few thin-pressed breads, light and cracking when I take a bite from one. Fresh coffee has been provided, but Luca's tastes run for a bitter draught in the morning, rather than Bevelle's more soothing sugar. In the port town you are expected to be about your business and eat during the breaks at market, rather than congregating during bell chimes at the dining halls.
The innkeeper's wife sees me foraging at the table; she asks me how I slept, and I answer her with a pleasant nod and assurances that all went well.
Yevon may not have an official temple in Luca, but there remain buildings of estate that business has been conducted in over the years. While Bevelle has fallen out of natural favor and no longer possesses the same mystic reverence as it used to, having a place to go is far better than trying to set up a table on the sidewalks and attempting to review Seekers there.
I squirrel away two pieces of the cracker-bread into a pocket of my vest-coat, wrapped in a cloth napkin to keep them from crumbling too much into the lining. The humidity of the air has already started to hint at the cloying temperatures of noon. When I step outside, the first breath I draw comes flush with seaside damp.
A number of guards have rallied themselves to stand outside the inn. One of them is in the process of yawning noisily when I exit. He covers his mouth with a hasty palm; another guard gives him a sharp elbow in the side. The minor scuffle engages itself with muffled laughter, a few low words, and then the machina squad falls into line automatically around me.
The novelty of being protected by Bevelle guards rather than harassed by them is encouraging enough that I find myself enjoying the stone roads we walk on down towards the review hall.
I have been given the keys to the outer door of the building; pausing at the entrance to unlatch the bolts and throw them back, I leave the wooden portal open to allow the fresh breeze to pass within, unhindered by the guards.
Hours pass in ease while I am surrounded by paperwork. The satchel is emptied, contents spread across the wide desk provided. Yevon's last priest had a tendency to doodle while his thoughts wandered. I can see the scribbles faint remaining in the grain of the woodwork.
The first applicant arrives on schedule, at the tenth hour of the morning. All too soon there is a line forming at the door, stretching out around the corner judging from how they are leaning against the windows. Bevelle's guards know their business better than I do, automatically ordering the queue and relaying my requests for the next visitor once I finish the current's file.
Each time that they interrogate the line for their identity and call it back to me where I sit, I sort through the applications for that chosen name. Originally I had sectioned out the dossiers into plausible and implausible recruits, but that left me pawing through both sides in search. After the first ten have been processed, I have simply collapsed the files into one pile and attempted a haphazard organization while between interviewees. Not the most efficient means, perhaps, but it lends itself well to the mixed leisure and practicality of the Luca day.
A number of the applicants are experienced warriors. The majority are young; still fresh enough that they had been raised with hope of the Crusaders or some fiend-hunting in mind. With Sin no longer collecting pyreflies into malicious shapes, the fiend count has dropped dramatically. Natural enthusiasm has been squandered as a result, and so those who were expecting a life of hard battles have little else to do but apply themselves to the role of Seeker instead.
Very few of those attempting to join have reasons for Yevon to turn them away. I go through the questions mechanically, double-checking each hopeful for veracity. It leaves my mind free to wander, and my thoughts find themselves circling back to one person eternal.
Paine is right. What I think is the best way to handle this Vegnagun mystery might only be an attempt to keep from the riskier path, that of trying to keep both my relationship with her as well as her life intact. By Paine's standards, I must sound like a pompous ass. Or cowardly.
I have been taking the safe route after all.
But it is safe because I know it best, and trying to deny my own talents would be equal foolishness.
Sourness fills my hand as I methodically stamp the approval mark upon each application, my signature looped again and again on the designated line. It should rightfully be a priest who is here, authorizing the acts of these Seekers who will go out into the world and loot or war if they feel it right. All in pursuit of the truth--the truth that will only be eliminated once it has been brought back to Bevelle, erased so that Spira can move into a future without ever looking back at Sin.
Am I truly willing to sacrifice the past in exchange for my goals? Trema said that the High Summoner Yuna was able to destroy Sin because she was willing to forsake even the religion that had given her life its very definition. Such an ability to abandon all values of the past and forge ahead through uncertainty, keeping only the final destination fixed in sight--is that not what I do now?
At the cost of my own time with Paine. Everything being weighed on various scales has given me unsteady measurements. I don't know what to trade.
Perhaps we will never be reconciled. I simply don't know.
When I finally hear Nooj's name being heralded to me across the hall, it seems a poor climax to a day I have already deemed empty. A conclusion forgone, steeped in the stigma of Vegnagun that has divided our Team to nothingness.
Dutifully, I reach out my hand and flip to the alphabetical section containing his identity.
The Deathseeker approaches with a smirk already fixed upon his features. I have seen such a look intimidate Yevon instructors before, face down other Teams. This time it is meant for me.
Knowing that does not make it the easier to ignore such a force of charisma. There can be no chances of foul play here; the guards would stop Nooj before he even pulled a weapon. Awareness of this fills me with a strange calm.
I have become very good at feeling nothing recently.
He greets me first. "Yevon." The barest dip of his head in acknowledgement that I am a living being sitting here. The word is a harsh depersonalization. I have no doubt that he intended such deliberately.
"Nooj."
The Deathseeker's cane shifts in his hand, twisting against the ground with a small squeak.
"It says here that your interest in serving New Yevon," I cannot help applying emphasis to the proper title of recent Bevelle, "stems from a desire to share the truth with all." The edge of the paper in my hand lowers; I give him the barest glance, eyes narrowed in a blatant skepticism. "And that you wish nothing more than for Spira's people to benefit from a mutual growth through knowledge."
He wastes no effort on dissembling. "That is correct."
I reach for the stamps, dip one in ink and slam it on his paperwork.
"Approved."
So confident was the man that I would refuse him that it takes a visible second for the result to sink in. I enjoy seeing the change on his features.
"Why?" This word is hissed; Nooj has progressed from perverse satisfaction to surprise, to an expression that resembles muted horror. "Baralai, why did you approve me?"
This response is stranger than I expected. I assumed that in his game, he had been hoping for rejection so that he could assume the angle of the one slighted by Bevelle, a figurehead of proof that Yevon was still retaining its secrets despite its claim to accept all types of Seekers. He could use refusal as a healthy means to his end. Start a mob of his own, or a counter-organization, righteous indignation on his side.
By authorizing him as a Seeker, I imagined that his advantage would be destroyed before he even began to gather it. He should have been upset. I assumed as much.
But not this. This is a depth in his eyes I have not seen before.
No, my mind corrects itself. I have seen it after the loss of Team Four at Bikanel, when he was pacing our tent in frustration trying to think of a way to save us all from the instructors.
I do not understand.
"Would you like me to cancel your application?" To my credit, I school my own voice to a cold practicality, tinged with a shadow of bemusement. Fingers shift back to where the stamps wait, touch the rejection mark just waiting to be used.
Vulnerability vanishes from Nooj's face. "No." Now all is back to right again; his cocked confidence addressing every inch of his body. "I think that's just fine. Excellent work, Baralai."
I resist the urge to bristle as he turns the conversation once more, delivers me with unwanted approval as if he were still Team leader. Instead, I set his dossier to the side without a second glance. "Next!"
As the guards busy themselves with query to the line, I watch Nooj hobble out of the hall. His shoulders are as straight as an architect's rule despite his limp. There is no sign of anything other than absolute surety.
Why indeed.
More accurately, why did Nooj look so desperate?
Is there something in Yevon that he is afraid of? Something that he does not want to find him? I cannot think of any reason why Nooj would fear his own doom. He played at desiring it in order to make the rest of our Team protective of him, lied about his own deathwish so he could catch us off-guard and shoot us all later. But never has he seemed so stricken on the subject, false or otherwise.
Why would a man kill in the pursuit of an object he didn't want? Or has he joined the Seekers for another reason than to hunt Vegnagun?
There are no answers to these questions. Even if I had them, I know my path would be unchanged. Trema has information about Vegnagun that I further require, and now that I have performed this task for him, I must be allowed to inquire for more.
So be it.
When I return to Bevelle, slogging underneath the snow-smothered gates with my guardsmen in tow, the last news I expect to hear is that of a murder.