Title: Wheeled and Soared and Swung
Disclaimer: I own nothing; if I did ... Well, there would be some changes, let me tell you.
Spoilers: Post-game speculation
Warnings: Complete and utter disregard of FFX-2. Haven't played it, and aren't planing on. This is Post-Sin Yuna, Wakka, and anything implied is completely coinicidental.
Forword: This is so not a smart move on my part. This is the rough draft, THE ROUGH DRAFT; I'm still in the process of editing it. So please ignore any glaring mistakes. But because I'm finished it (for the most part) I thought I'd post it anyway.
Still to the sunlit fields Hope speeds us forth:
Prone on the grass, we dream that all is well:
And so wax old, and never grasp our rose.
A Sestina of Memories, J. E. Ball
He remembers being young and invincible and wonders if she remembers too.
And he remembers her smile, for he wants to see her smile for him. He's always thought that her smile was the loveliest thing about her. Wakka wants to hear her laughing, even though he realizes that he's never really heard her laugh at all. He remembers, even as a child, Yuna had always made sure she hid her mouth behind her hand when she laughed, as if ashamed to be caught doing something so undignified, so carefree. And that's a shame because she has such a beautiful laugh.
Wakka also remembers when she first came to Besaid, all huge mute eyes and tragic smile, and he wonders if she remembers his failed attempt at teaching her to swim. She'd been all of oh, what—six? Maybe seven? She was tiny—hardly tall enough to reach his waist—and on arrival the temple priest and his acolytes immediately set upon her en masse; he didn't know why at the time but when he later learned that it was because she was the High Summoner's daughter, it suddenly all made sense. He and his brother had only been able to catch a glimpse of soft brown hair and tears.
So he, in all his magnanimous thirteen years of age, decided that he would teach her to swim. And she'd been so afraid of them, of his bother and he. She'd crouched shivering on the beach, tiny feet tucked primly under her light skirt. Chappu had teased her and he'd jokingly, impatiently, splashed at her. She shrieked—covered her head with tiny hands and tucked her face into her knees—and Kimahri had swooped down, hissing and scolding like a great blue hen, and whisked her away. Wakka can remember her small, moon-round face peering over the ronso's shoulder.
He can remember this because he remembers how her he had noticed her eyes were two different colours for the first time. And he can remember because he remembers her eyes, one as blue as the distant sky and the other greener than the Calm Lands, and the faraway sort of wistful wanting in them.
He wants to fix her. It has been bothering him for a while.
He wants to fix her so that she's happy again because she is one of the few people in the world who doesn't deserve to be unhappy. He wants her to smile for him and at him because he loves her smile—he likes how it just sort of blooms on her lips and how you can see it coming from a mile away. He likes how he can see it start in the corner of her mouth as a miniscule twitch.
He wants to fix Yuna because she is broken and he thinks he might be partially responsible for the breaking.
He wants her to be like any other seventeen year old who hasn't saved the world. He wants her to giggle and flirt and prattle on about nothing like every other girl her own age. He wants to take away the wounded look he sees in her blue eye and the anger that swirls in the pupil of her green.
So yeah, he wants to fix her.
And it's been bothering him for a while because he has no idea of how to start.
When he finds her praying in the near-deserted temple, he doesn't know whether to go and join her or to stand and just watch. He thinks that he'd feel horribly awkward; he knows she is praying for Tidus to be returned to her—just as he had prayed for Chappu to be returned to him—because she hasn't learned yet that sometimes all the wishing in the world can't make such loss right. So he waits for her in the arched entranceway, and just watches. That's all he really seems good at anyway.
Sometimes he thinks that he was the wrong man for the job. Sometimes he thinks that Chappu should have been the guardian and he should have just been the Blitzer.
He has it all mapped out in his mind. In his fantasy, Chappu and Lulu (already and happily lovers) accompany Lady Summoner Yuna on her pilgrimage to save the world from Sin. During their journey they get to see him lead the Aurochs to victory at the Blitzball championships, and after Sin is Calmed Chappu and Lu return home for a long, peaceful life and Yuna—
It's funny, but in all of his little daydreams he never even considered imagining that she would not survive her pilgrimage. And even if he knew she couldn't be happy in reality because her life was as fleeting as snow on a summer day, he always made sure she was joyous in him whimsies. Wakka always made it a point to pretend that she would survive the summon and that she'd come home and then she'd have loads of fat babies or travel the four corners of the world or become a leader of men like she is meant to be. He never let himself imagine the Calm without her, even though he believed that there couldn't be any Calm with her survival.
Maybe that is why they were all so lost now. Because now there will never be another Sin to terrify the world and ask for the sacrifice of someone so good, and this revolution that took a millennia to happen. The Faytes messed up in that respect; no one remembers how to live without Sin anymore. Everyone is lost, he thinks, even when it's only something little and simple like going out fishing.
Or when it's something as big as mending a broken heart.
"It'll get better, ya?" He tells her even though he can see pained disbelief in her beautiful, strange eyes. He wants her to believe him because she needs to be happy and be Yuna again; not this ghost-thin, jagged-edged person. He wants to believe himself because then there is some attainable end he can work towards.
It'll get better.
He's always expected to be on the receiving end of that sentence because he's always expected to be burying Yuna and whoever she chose for her aeon. He always expected those words and he never realized just how fucking inadequate they are until now.
He hates himself for lying to her, because it is a lie no matter how sweet a one. Things will never really get better. And that is what he wants to tell her. That is what he tried to tell her but failed.
He should have said; it'll get better, but it will never stop aching and you will never stop wanting.
Because it's one thing to have lost a loved one; loved one. Singular—as in just one person—and it's another thing entirely to lose them all. She has lost her father, the love of her life, and her faith in one fell swoop. He, at least, was allowed to keep her and Lu.
Yuna has lost everything.
Wakka had been there from the beginning, and he should have tried harder. This is the thought that prevents most of his sleep now.
It pisses him off that it took a kid like Tidus to show him that there was another way. That there was a way to save the world and the girl; he can't help thinking that if he'd just tried harder, believed more fervently, been more like Chappu, just been more, then Yuna wouldn't be drowning herself in tears for the death of a long dream. It infuriates him that he didn't think beyond his upbringing, because maybe if he had he could have saved her this heartache.
Once even he had dreams of being the hero and saving the world. And the girl.
Maybe he would have, if things had gone differently. If his brother had not joined with the Crusaders and if he had kept playing Blitzball, maybe he could have been the one to say stop; this isn't right. But instead Chappu had died and he'd withdrawn into his shell of faith, of "what god wills." Instead it took a dream wrapped-up in his brother's face to knock him in the head and tell him to shape up.
It really pisses him off.
How could he have been so stupid—
He should have done something. The guilt keeps him up at night. Even though he knows that he didn't think of what their journey would end in because he knew that if he did consider it—consider how she was basically committing suicide for the betterment of mankind, though how mankind could be better off without her shining smile he didn't know—then he would scooped Yuna up (like Kimahri had done years ago) and lock her away to where no harm could come to her (like Kimahri should have done years ago).
Chappu was the best brother a boy could hope for.
He was golden and sunny and graceful and charming, and everything that Wakka was not. Everyone was his friend, and he was everyone's best friend. He was idealistic, and he was talented. No matter what he did he was good at it. There had been a time when Wakka had trembled (years before Yuna had come to Besaid) because when idealism combined with talent, a summoner was often the result. But—luckily and not so luckily—Chappu had never been too interested in self-sacrifice or in Yevon.
But that didn't matter in the long run because there were Great Things expected of Chappu, no matter what he did.
So it was only natural that the best youth in the village would be in love with the most beautiful girl in the village. Even though she was older than them and by all rights should have never given them the time of day, Lulu was (still is) far too kind. So it was natural that this charming golden-red boy and this beautiful midnight-dark girl be in love because they were the sun and the moon of Besaid and just as inextricable.
And Wakka had been relieved at the time for, though Yuna only showed promise of what she was to become, he knew even then that she was going to save the world as her father had done before her. Everyone knew it; it was expected of her, just like the Great Things expected of his brother.
And it was a relief that Chappu loved Lu because then he wouldn't risk having his heart broken.
Chappu's heart; not his his.
There was absolutely no reason to worry about breaking his heart. Even when he'd thought that Yuna was the prettiest, softest looking thing he'd ever laid his eyes on. Even when he'd felt impotent anger as Chappu (before he and Lulu were dating, and before he and Lulu were dating openly, because if Chappu set his heart on something it was his) told him that he thought Yuna was something special.
His heart couldn't be broken anymore than it already was.
"You are going to teach me to swim," Yuna commands. He stares at her for a moment, aghast. For a moment because, since Sin and Zanarkand and Tidus, Yuna never commands; she barely even talks. Aghast because she looks like something unsent herself—pale and papery and fragile.
Fragile. Wakka thinks suddenly of her first Sending. Not the one in Kilika, though that was her first official Sending. He thinks of the first Sending she ever had to do, and she is a slender thirteen grabbed in an acolyte's whites. They had been four fishermen and their boat had returned the night before, up-ended and empty. The morning had brought the bodies to rest on the beach; all four bloated with Sin's toxins and sea water. Their priest would have Sent them but he was too sick, so Yuna was the only one with the training to do the duty.
He remembers her striding with a confidence she'd never shown before across the uneasy waves, swinging the staff that was—is—far too large for her. He remembers her shifting across the water like a mirage, an apparition, and remembers thinking that there was nothing this little girl couldn't do. He remembers her white knuckled grip and her steadysick face and her smile and he knew right then that she was the real thing, the stuff of legends.
Mostly, though, he remembers her as she stumbled back through the surf, no longer some ethereal, evanescent figure walking on water, but just a girl soaked to the hips with sea-spray and so fragile. There had been no one to comfort her or take away the ocean's chill that day because he was too much a boy and there was no Lulu (already on her own pilgrimage) or Kimahri (guarding a shipment to Luca) in Besaid at the time to wipe away her seasalt-tears.
He remembers because that is how she looks today. She looks less like the girl who absolved the world of Sin and more like the child standing, shivering; soaking in sea foam and pyerflies and tears.
"I tried. You screamed," he retorts. He wants to bite his tongue and groan because that is not what he wanted to say or how he wanted to say it. But at the same time he's curious to know if she remembers. Because he remembers and it's one of his best memories.
"You will teach me to swim," she replies. There is a ghost, a hint, a promise of a smile in the shadows of her cheeks. "And I will not scream, this time."
It doesn't surprise him that Chappu loved Lu with all of his heart because that's the way his brother is—was. He did something with his all, or not at all. And when he set his mind to something, he did it. Come hell or high water.
Unfortunately, he got both.
But Wakka has learned to accept the things that he cannot change, no matter how much they sting. Sort of like Lulu.
Fifteen-year-old Lulu had scared him. She'd been one of those girls; confident, intelligent, and jaw-droppingly mind-numbingly gorgeous. He'd been thirteen, and it had baffled him that a girl like her would even know their existed, let alone take the time to say hello to his brother and him. When Wakka turned sixteen, he'd kind of expected one of them to have a crush on the older girl. It turned out to be Chappu (because Wakka was never a heartbreaker and Lulu was always the kind of girl that made him flustered and tongue-tied) who got the crush on the eighteen-year-old sorceress. No, that didn't surprise him.
The fact that Lulu admitted to liking Chappu back did.
But even that didn't surprise him all that much; Chappu was an almost elemental force. Looking back on it, Wakka knows that he would have been more surprised had she not returned his brother's affection.
He remembers being eighteen and catching his brother and Lu stealing a kiss in the temple shadows. In his mind's eye he can still see Chappu's golden head leaning possessively into Lulu's jet-black tresses, his image flicking in the dying firelight as ghostly as an apparition fading into nothingness—if Wakka had been thinking at the time, he would have said it was a prophesy.
Three months after the end of the world, he teaches her to swim.
It's a parody of the many years ago when she had stood on the edge of the bay and watched him and his brother with bright eyes, curious and frightened, swimming in youthful abandon. Except this time there is only one boy swimming in the bay, and the girl standing on the shore has lost the shine in her gaze, and looks only weary now. She shivers under his faintly concerned gaze and rubs arms chilled by the brisk sea wind.
Wakka runs his fingers through currents that eddy around his hips in an unconscious gesture. There is a sting of sympathy in his chest that never quite leaves in her presence, and he knows that he owes that to guilt. She is as trap by loss as he is, and he is—if only in his mind—partially responsible.
"The water won't kill you," this is said with gentle teasing because she really does look silly standing in the turquoise surf, and also because he feels a need to lessen the tension that he senses between them. Not that he will blame her should she feel distrust for him.
Yuna deserves far more than the lot she's been dealt in life.
"I know," she mutters fretfully, tugging at her bottom lip with her teeth. She still doesn't move, however. Wakka is tempted, much as he had been when he was thirteen, to splash her. He resists, treading the water with his large hands, and looks at the sky above her head, blue and endless.
"Just take it one step at a time," he tells her and she casts him this look—he feels that he has said something right and something wrong at the same time, and he can feel his skin want to flush even though he is far too old for blushing. She moves ankle deep into the water, and he feels a flutter of pride beat in his breast.
Yuna is brave; far braver than he. She will survive this, he knows, and be stronger for it. She will become a great leader and she will be content. Just as he's always known she would be. With soft, encouraging noises he draws her deeper into the water until she is wet to the waist and looking oddly frightened. She is the girl who absolved Spira of Sin, who touched the face of God, and she is afraid of a little water!
Wakka laughs then, and she tosses him a murderous look. Feeling playful he sinks under the waves and circles her feet, snatching playfully at her ankles. She shies away from his hands, but slips on loose sand and joins him on the bottom for a moment. Through the blue he can see her eyes wide and her mouth open in a little 'o' of surprise, before she pushes off the sand and sputters to the surface.
He breaks the water laughing.
With a frown, she coughs and makes a move to return to dry land. Wakka (still laughing; it feels wonderful because it feels almost like before the Pilgrimage and before Tidus and before she fell in love) reaches out and captures her wrist. The tug sends them both under water again, and when he breaks the surface for a second time, she too is laughing.
"See now? Not so scary, eh?"
Over come with mirth, she does not answer, but splashes him. His eyes widen in delight and before he knows what's happened they are in the middle of a water-war. He wins, of course, and Yuna mutters something choice about his tactics under her breath, but she's too winded to do more than drape herself over his shoulders for support and he cradles her gently against his chest and just drifts—as well as one can in waist-deep water.
They float in silence for a moment, peaceful in the blue water under the blue sky, until Yuna sighs and moves out of his arms, floating in the water as lightly as a sea-sprite.
"Issaru wants to marry me," she confesses quietly, looking at something far off that he couldn't see. Wakka doesn't want to discuss this. He'd already known of the request, directly from the hands of the young Maester's own brother, because it had come to him and Lulu first. He hadn't wanted to bother her with things like that quite yet and hadn't said anything. He guesses that Lu told her and tries to quash the anger he feels at that little betrayal.
He already knows what her answer will be because he knows Yuna. She is self-sacrificing to a fault. And she knows just as well as he does that in this new world without Sin, people will be frightened and wanting guidance. And she is the last High Summoner, who else is better to lead them as wife to the Grand Maester of Yveon?
He knows all this. This is Yuna's duty, her burden. He knows this just as he knows his own duty is to marry Lu, as Chappu would have done, and to settle down in Besaid.
He knows this, so why the ache in his chest?
Wakka doesn't really think that he ever asked god for much. His life has been self-contained; he had his brother, and Lulu, and Yuna, and that was enough for a long time. All he ever asked for was to wake up and see them in the morning, and bid them good night before he went to bed.
But he remembers when Chappu died how he'd thought, how can god do this? Nothing could be worse than this gaping loss. He remembers thinking the same thing when Yuna had told him that she was going to stop Sin, because she couldn't stand to see people she cared about hurting. He remembers because it was right after Chappu's death; he remembers this because he remembers praying to god that night and asking him to make her fail the Trail, because his heart—still reeling from his brother's death—couldn't take losing her too.
He was so mad at Chappu that it hurt.
To some extent he is still mad at Chappu. Like a cascade effect, his brother's death changed everything. Wakka can say, if Chappu hadn't died ... And, if he hadn't joined with the Crusaders, or even if he hadn't used the forbidden machina, because it's all true. That Yuna decided she couldn't take anyone else's suffering is the result of Chappu's death. However, Wakka also knows that it's because she is Braska's daughter and such a good person, and because she loves everyone except herself so much—
He can say but and because and if, all he wants, but it doesn't change anything.
Chappu will still be dead, Lulu still sleeping with his memory and Yuna will still be—
Wakka does not think that he ever asked much of god. He asked what he assumes every man asks; that his family be happy and healthy and that his loved ones be safe. He doesn't think that it's much, but it's something to him. Or, it was.
Wakka has lost his brother twice-over, and his faith in god. He isn't sure which hurts more.
When everyone else is dead and he is fat and old and blind, this is how he will remember her; falling, wheeling, soaring—arms out-stretched and bracing for the impact.
On her last day in Besaid, he takes her swimming one more time because she is still not the greatest swimmer, and he doesn't want her drowning on the trip to her own wedding. She readily agrees, if only to escape the miasma generated by her leaving.
He takes her to the bay filled with so many memories, and they swim and splash and play like the children they had left behind so many years ago. When Yuna finally calls a halt to the fun she looks more herself. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are bright, though Wakka suspects that the latter might be from tears that she will never shed. Yuna does not cry; at least, not over her own life.
He takes her back the long way, the way off the cliff and through the lacy coral beds, and she lets him. Part of Wakka wants to tell her that she doesn't have to do this if she doesn't want, and that people will understand. It will be a lie, of course, but he is still willing to tell it if it will eliminate the stiff edge in her smile.
At the edge of the cliff, they stand side-by-side for a moment, both contemplative. This is it, he thinks. He wants to ask her if she's scared, because he knows that he is, but he doesn't dare. That's not the kind of question that he is supposed to ask, even if it's the one he wants to.
What will it be like without Yuna in Besaid, he wonders?
He doesn't want to think about it.
So he jumps.
This brings to mind two other times. The first time he thinks of he is twelve, Chappu ten, and Yuna not yet in Besaid. "Chicken," he'd squawked at the smaller boy though his own legs felt like jelly there at the crumbling edge. Chappu had growled and said, "I'll jump if you do." Of course, he had to then because he was the older brother and it was up to him to set the standards (and he knew if he didn't do it now, Chappu would do it sooner or later, and then he'd have to do it anyway). So he leapt off the plateau and into thin air and fell for what seemed like forever.
The second time it makes him think of is not so long ago, when Tidus first appears seemingly out of the blue. The boy is his brother made-over and his heart is ecstatic because he believes for a minute that it actually is Chappu returned by the hand of god himself. Even when Tidus explains himself and his sudden appearance some part of Wakka still thinks: this is my brother. The jump from the cliff is a trial, of sort; a litmus test to dissuade himself from falling too much in love with the boy with his brother's face. It does and doesn't work. It certainly proves that Tidus is not his brother, but it doesn't stop him from feeling light-headedly joyful when he sees that blond head or from giving the boy the sword he'd given Chappu and that Chappu had never used. That night Lulu berates him because he knows that she feels the same.
Like the first time, with Chappu, Wakka dives in first. He breaks the water cleanly, nary a ripple showing that he sliced through the waves, and under the water he sees brightly-colored schools scatter at his arrival, scales flashing with the brightness of a handful of coins thrown in the sun. With a quick roll, he turns and propels himself to the surface. The salt water spikes his lashes and creates prisms at the corners of his sight. He balances himself carefully, treading with just his legs, and cups his hands around his mouth.
"Its fine, come on in," he calls to Yuna, still standing at the edge. From this distance, he can't see her expression, but he's sure it's priceless.
"It's too high," she calls back, after a moment's hesitation. He can make out the wringing of her hands. "I can't jump from here."
He laughs; "Yuna, just jump."
"I can't; I'll fall."
"And I'll catch you." He brushes his hair back from his face; it's coarse with brine and beginning to dry in the late afternoon sunshine. "Always; I'm right here. Just jump." There is silence then, and she moves away from the edge; she moves until he can't see her anymore but Wakka waits because he said he would.
There is only the shriek she releases as she jumps to let him know that she's coming. He sees her make the jump, arms and legs pumping like she's trying to run on the air as she leaves the safety of the ground. For a second she hangs suspended in the waning daylight, arms flung out like wings.
She is so much braver than he his, and it doesn't seem more obvious to him than at that moment. She streaks like a hawk through the air towards him, pulling into a sharply angled dive with no fear of the water below. This is how he remembers her, young and invincible and falling through the air, hair streaming.
So this is how he will remember her; arms and legs akimbo, a girl leaping into unknown space with only trust and courage at her side, while he waits below to pick up her pieces.
Oh! I have slipped the surly bonds of Earth
And danced the skies on laughter-silvered wings;
Sunward I've climbed, --and done a hundred things
You have not dreamed of -- wheeled and soared and swung
High in the sunlit silence.
High Flight, John Gillespie Magee Jr