Disclaimer: Final Fantasy X, Final Fantasy X-2, Spira, blitzball, and all related characters and locations are owned by Squaresoft, with the exception of a few original characters who will be noted as such. This is a work of fanfiction, meaning that it is both created by a fan for no purpose other than entertainment, and it is fiction, meaning that all characters and events are purely fictonal and any resemblance to real persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Ahh, yeah, finally, the diggers are excavating through my writer's block on this story. I own Chelza and Gar, by the way.
Author's Note: The narrator of this story is Al Bhed, and some dialogue and idiomatic phrases have not been translated into English. Translations of all Al Bhed phrases can be found at the end of the chapter in which they appear.
Green Eyes Plays Dress-Up
by flame mage
spherechange 14: Unwavering Guard
He was standing at the edge of Youth League HQ at Mushroom Rock. The sunlight reflects off the cliffs and it always seems like sunset there. The camera was initially aimed back at him, but then he turned and shot toward one of the tents.
"That's where I'm going," he explained to the camera. "That's Miyu's tent."
He got closer and started to brush aside the flap of the tent, then stopped. Suddenly, I could see why: Miyu wasn't alone inside. She was sitting on one side of a cheap foldable wooden table--and on the other side of the table, Rin was pacing around the room.
Bickson whirled around and pressed his back to the tent, listening. The camera was focused on the Crusaders on the other side of the encampment inspecting some machina weapons, but I could hear every word they were saying.
"Secc Miyu, do you know where she is?" Rin was asking.
Miyu hesitated, then spoke. "...yes. I do."
"Where?"
I could hear Bickson leaning forward, but Miyu's reply was too soft to hear. "There's no one else I can tell. Sooner or later I'm sure Bickson will come by, but I'm under strict orders not to give out any information to anyone. But I feel that I can trust you with this," she continued in a louder tone a few moments later. "They sent her there as damage control."
"Perhaps that is best," Rin conceded. "She does have a hot temper."
"Like Amirel?"
"How would you know about that?" he asked sharply.
"Only what she's told me."
I heard a noise like Rin was sitting down heavily. "...yes," he said simply after a long silence. "She becomes more like her mother every day. Someday it may get her into trouble. I do not believe in souls, but if I did...I would say it was in her soul."
Miyu was silent. After a moment, I could hear Rin chuckling quietly to himself.
"What is it?" Miyu asked.
"This is the first time I've talked about her in more than two years," he replied. "I've tried so hard to forget..." I almost jumped. Rin almost never talked about himself, and definitely never talked about Mom. Now he was going off to someone like Miyu who was almost a total stranger. He must be under a lot of stress.
"What was she like?"
He exhaled shortly, something between a sigh and a scoff. "Brilliant. Explosive. She terrified me sometimes. I would have taken the world apart for her. In the end, she settled for taking me apart." The short, clipped thoughts weren't like him at all. The voice wasn't like him. None of this was like him. What was wrong with him?
More silence. Then, quietly, Miyu's voice. "How do you bear it?"
Rin made the same helpless sound again. "I try to forget." He almost laughed again, a bitter half-barking sound. "I can't. I wouldn't want to. But...I stay busy--" He stopped, and I heard a scuffle as the chair turned in the dirt. "--You look as if you understand."
"Yes." Miyu's voice was picking up that distant tone it had always gotten when she talked about her past. "I also lost someone I loved a long time ago. Sin took him from me." Her voice grew quiet, like she was talking to herself. "I would have done anything for him. If he had remained with me, I'd be in a tiny village by the Moonflow right now, selling potions and cooking dinner...for our children." Her voice broke. "But when he died, I wanted to become him. I learned how to blitz, but I wasn't very good. All I could do was defend a goal--I'd pretend that the goal was him, and the ball was Sin. If I could catch it, I could save him. I became a Crusader. At Operation Mi'ihen..." She hesitated, then continued. "...I was reckless, because I wanted to die. I charged at Sin alone, with just a sword. But...it didn't kill me. Instead, I was thrown off. When I awoke, it was all over. I looked around that desolate beach and I saw the faces of the dead...I knew then that I had to fight."
"Then you do understand," Rin replied.
There was silence again.
"I envy her sometimes, Rin," Miyu burst out suddenly. "They fight all the time, but she and Bickson look so happy together. I used to have someone that made me feel like that too.
"I'm sorry," she said after another beat. I could hear that she was still crying. "I don't know what I'm doing. I just started talking."
"It's all right," Rin answered her softly.
Slowly and deliberately, Bickson swung the camera around and lifted the tent flap just a crack so he could see in. Rin was sitting across the table from Miyu, his hand resting gently on hers. She was looking at him, maskless, with tears in her eyes. She didn't take her hand away.
Bickson spun again and walked back through the camp and out. He was silent as he left HQ and took the lift down. When he was alone beneath the overhang back on Mushroom Rock Road, he set the camera down on a ledge and faced it. "I'm never going to get it out of her if she's under orders. There must be some safety concern. But at least now I know that you're alive. Word is that Naaga's working for the Machine Faction now. It won't take me long to get to Djose on foot, even if this is a combat zone. Maybe she knows something.
"You're gonna laugh at me when you see this," he half-laughed himself. "You'll probably roll your eyes and say something like, 'You big moron, like I can't take care of myself.' But...I worry that you're fighting somewhere now. Are you in danger? If I know you, you'll have wormed your way straight into the heart of the action. But...dammit, Lin. I don't think I'll show you these recordings. But I have to remember what everyone says. I have to learn everything I can, and follow all the clues until they lead to you. If you're fighting, I'm going to fight with you. If you're building weapons, I'll learn about machina until I can help. I just--dammit!" He slammed a fist against the rock face. "I hope you're all right."
The transmission ended. I stared at the blank screen, feeling the deepest frustration I'd ever experienced. Even if I could get a message to the Machine Faction, there was no way Gippal would let me tell him where I was--he'd come charging out here, with my luck reporters would follow him, and my whole cover would be blown. Could anyone at least get the message through that I was all right, and that I was coming back as soon as I could? Tyssed...I was as trapped as he was.
So if I wanted to get home, I'd have to dig up a lot of parts so the Faction could build its weapons. But if those weapons ended up getting sold to New Yevon...the Aurochs were all Youth Leaguers, and so were most of my friends. What if I was finding the parts that would be used to make the guns that would kill them? What if some of the New Yevonites found out where I was and came to kill me? Again, I wondered if there was any way to get out of here. It wouldn't be that hard to stow away inside a shipping crate in Sanna's freight hover, or convince Buddy and Aniki to take me back to Besaid. Wasn't it more important that I help the Youth League by protecting my new hometown from what might be imminent invasion?
There was no way. Hiding in a hover would let me out at Djose, and I'd almost certainly get caught and sent right back. And even if I made it to Besaid, what was I going to do there? Beclem would have heard about the trouble I'd caused. He'd probably enjoy reporting me to Miyu and Nooj himself, and then I'd really have it coming. There was no telling how long a war might last--I could be here for months or even years, especially if I didn't find more parts. I was starting to get really depressed. I was royally screwed, and there was no way around it.
Watching Bickson's transmission reminded me of the sphere Benzo and I had found in the sub. I sighed. My shower could wait until I'd seen what was on it. If it was worth anything, the Gullwings might pay through the nose for it. Hey, knowing Gippal, maybe I could use the money to buy my way out.
I took out the sphere and popped it into the base of the commsphere. It took a while to register on the screen, and when it did it was pretty grainy. But I could see that the background was some kind of tropical village--there were buildings like the ruins in Besaid. It didn't look like any place in Besaid I'd ever seen, though, I noticed. I didn't recognize it as any place in Kilika either, but maybe there was somewhere I hadn't been. Or maybe whatever port it was had changed since then; this sphere definitely looked old. I could hear gulls calling and a breeze over the water. It was obviously a gorgeous day there; the palm trees were swaying gently and the sky was a clear, pure blue.
I heard footsteps and then a person appeared in front of the screen. The first thing I noticed was the mottled blue-brown skin and then the stiffly kinky hair splayed in all directions. It was a Guado--I felt my skin crawl and there was a sharp pain in my right hand as the knuckles cracked--but it was wearing a long dress and the hair was grown long. When the figure turned to face the camera, I added that to the delicate facial features and decided that it was a female, and a young one. But what was a Guado doing in Kilika? Even before they'd fled to Macalania in fear of being attacked by my people and the Ronso, the Guado had rarely left Guadosalam. Weird.
"Good morrow," the small Guado female said in a high, cultured-sounding voice. Something in it--the pitch, or maybe the inflection--reminded me of hearing Seymour speak two years ago. It wasn't much like Nav's scratchy voice. She was speaking in English, but it was a strange kind of English I'd never heard before. "I am Chelza, of the city of Zanarkand, greatest in all of Spira. It is that place from which my family does come, but this terrible war has forced us to flee here, to the isle of Bikanel."
What the--? War? There had only been one major war in the recorded history of Spira, and that was the Machina War a thousand years ago. If she came from Zanarkand, then this must be... that old? Sphere hunters would pay a fortune for it.
Then the second part of her statement hit me. Bikanel? Bikanel was an island, all right, but it was dead and sandy, nothing like the paradise the young female Guado was standing in. When had it ever looked like that?
"My father has remained there to fight." The girl looked down and bit her lip. "It is only my mother and my young brother Gar who have accompanied me here. In eleven years, I have never seen such a place! Such lush and verdant jungles, such blue waters and cool breezes. It does warm my heart that if I cannot live in the beauty of Zanarkand created by man, I may at least live here in the beauty of nature."
So she was an eleven-year-old refugee. And the entire island was an oasis. This was getting trippier and trippier by the moment, and it only got worse when she looked up with a gleam in her small dark eyes and said, "When the war has ended, my father promised me that he will come for us. He said that there will be a great concert to celebrate Zanarkand's victory! I cannot wait until I can return--my father told me that perhaps Lenne, the most famous songstress in all of Spira, will sing! In the past, I have only seen her on our sphere, but it is said that she is even more beautiful and sings even more wonderfully in person. When I am older, I wish to be a songstress who will light up the stage as she does!"
I half-smiled in spite of myself. Naaga had talked like that when she was a little kid too. Rikku still did, actually. Still dreaming of fame and glory. Then again...didn't I do that too? I wondered if maybe the Guado hadn't always been as barbaric as they were now, or if she was just too young to have learned it yet. She seemed so...normal.
"But I do worry that I may be kept from this goal," Chelza continued thoughtfully, sitting down in front of the sphere. Her long skirt stretched as she crossed her legs in the lotus position and set her chin in her hands. "In all the time I can remember, I have never yet seen a songstress who looked like me. It seems that only those like Lenne are beautiful enough to sing for Spira's people--those with creamy skin and long brown hair. I worry that because I am Guado, others may try to keep me from the stage."
I stopped cracking my knuckles and stared at the sphere. I'd thought the same thing when I was her age--I can't blitz unless I join the Psyches. No other team will ever take an Al Bhed. No one will ever come to see my games. There's no way to make it in this world unless you're a Yevonite. So the Guado had gone through the same thing as the Al Bhed. Interesting--but then, I reflected, it was different, after all. After everything they and their leader had done, the Guado deserved whatever they got. The Al Bhed had never done anything except keep alive the ancient traditions of Zanarkand.
"But I will not let them," the Guado said on the screen, jutting her small pointed chin out defiantly. "I shall be the biggest star Spira has seen since time began! It has been only a few months since my father sent word for us. Soon, I am sure that the war will end and he will call us home for Lenne's concert!" There was a small snuffling sound and a chubby little Guado toddler wondered onto the screen. He was sucking his thumb and dragging a stuffed Moogle along the ground with his other hand. Naaga had a Moogle like that too.
"Chel," he whimpered, "I am afraid. In the street, they are saying that Zanarkand is losing the war. They predict that the Bevellians shall descend upon the refugees on this island within days."
He looked about four, but he was talking like he was thirty-four. I was used to Al Bhed whiz kids, but Chelza had used that weird formal dialect too. Was this Old Guado? I should ask Benzo.
Chelza hesitated, and I caught a hint of wild fear like an animal's in her small black eyes before she turned to the little boy and smiled. "These are merely rumors, Gar. They are falsehoods. We shall be at home again soon, you shall see." She scooped him up in her arms and he slung his own chubby ones around her neck, the Moogle swinging by its arm through the air. "Come," she cooed soothingly, "Let us go. Perhaps Mother will allow you to have just one sweet before dinner."
"Really?" he squealed, and I smiled again. At least he was still just a regular kid in some ways.
"Assuredly." Chelza smiled again and shifted her brother into one arm and reached out with the other towards the sphere. The image ground to a slow halt.
Ahh, yeah, finally, the diggers are excavating through my writer's block on this story. I own Chelza and Gar, by the way.
Author's Note: The narrator of this story is Al Bhed, and some dialogue and idiomatic phrases have not been translated into English. Translations of all Al Bhed phrases can be found at the end of the chapter in which they appear.
Green Eyes Plays Dress-Up
by flame mage
spherechange 14: Unwavering Guard
He was standing at the edge of Youth League HQ at Mushroom Rock. The sunlight reflects off the cliffs and it always seems like sunset there. The camera was initially aimed back at him, but then he turned and shot toward one of the tents.
"That's where I'm going," he explained to the camera. "That's Miyu's tent."
He got closer and started to brush aside the flap of the tent, then stopped. Suddenly, I could see why: Miyu wasn't alone inside. She was sitting on one side of a cheap foldable wooden table--and on the other side of the table, Rin was pacing around the room.
Bickson whirled around and pressed his back to the tent, listening. The camera was focused on the Crusaders on the other side of the encampment inspecting some machina weapons, but I could hear every word they were saying.
"Secc Miyu, do you know where she is?" Rin was asking.
Miyu hesitated, then spoke. "...yes. I do."
"Where?"
I could hear Bickson leaning forward, but Miyu's reply was too soft to hear. "There's no one else I can tell. Sooner or later I'm sure Bickson will come by, but I'm under strict orders not to give out any information to anyone. But I feel that I can trust you with this," she continued in a louder tone a few moments later. "They sent her there as damage control."
"Perhaps that is best," Rin conceded. "She does have a hot temper."
"Like Amirel?"
"How would you know about that?" he asked sharply.
"Only what she's told me."
I heard a noise like Rin was sitting down heavily. "...yes," he said simply after a long silence. "She becomes more like her mother every day. Someday it may get her into trouble. I do not believe in souls, but if I did...I would say it was in her soul."
Miyu was silent. After a moment, I could hear Rin chuckling quietly to himself.
"What is it?" Miyu asked.
"This is the first time I've talked about her in more than two years," he replied. "I've tried so hard to forget..." I almost jumped. Rin almost never talked about himself, and definitely never talked about Mom. Now he was going off to someone like Miyu who was almost a total stranger. He must be under a lot of stress.
"What was she like?"
He exhaled shortly, something between a sigh and a scoff. "Brilliant. Explosive. She terrified me sometimes. I would have taken the world apart for her. In the end, she settled for taking me apart." The short, clipped thoughts weren't like him at all. The voice wasn't like him. None of this was like him. What was wrong with him?
More silence. Then, quietly, Miyu's voice. "How do you bear it?"
Rin made the same helpless sound again. "I try to forget." He almost laughed again, a bitter half-barking sound. "I can't. I wouldn't want to. But...I stay busy--" He stopped, and I heard a scuffle as the chair turned in the dirt. "--You look as if you understand."
"Yes." Miyu's voice was picking up that distant tone it had always gotten when she talked about her past. "I also lost someone I loved a long time ago. Sin took him from me." Her voice grew quiet, like she was talking to herself. "I would have done anything for him. If he had remained with me, I'd be in a tiny village by the Moonflow right now, selling potions and cooking dinner...for our children." Her voice broke. "But when he died, I wanted to become him. I learned how to blitz, but I wasn't very good. All I could do was defend a goal--I'd pretend that the goal was him, and the ball was Sin. If I could catch it, I could save him. I became a Crusader. At Operation Mi'ihen..." She hesitated, then continued. "...I was reckless, because I wanted to die. I charged at Sin alone, with just a sword. But...it didn't kill me. Instead, I was thrown off. When I awoke, it was all over. I looked around that desolate beach and I saw the faces of the dead...I knew then that I had to fight."
"Then you do understand," Rin replied.
There was silence again.
"I envy her sometimes, Rin," Miyu burst out suddenly. "They fight all the time, but she and Bickson look so happy together. I used to have someone that made me feel like that too.
"I'm sorry," she said after another beat. I could hear that she was still crying. "I don't know what I'm doing. I just started talking."
"It's all right," Rin answered her softly.
Slowly and deliberately, Bickson swung the camera around and lifted the tent flap just a crack so he could see in. Rin was sitting across the table from Miyu, his hand resting gently on hers. She was looking at him, maskless, with tears in her eyes. She didn't take her hand away.
Bickson spun again and walked back through the camp and out. He was silent as he left HQ and took the lift down. When he was alone beneath the overhang back on Mushroom Rock Road, he set the camera down on a ledge and faced it. "I'm never going to get it out of her if she's under orders. There must be some safety concern. But at least now I know that you're alive. Word is that Naaga's working for the Machine Faction now. It won't take me long to get to Djose on foot, even if this is a combat zone. Maybe she knows something.
"You're gonna laugh at me when you see this," he half-laughed himself. "You'll probably roll your eyes and say something like, 'You big moron, like I can't take care of myself.' But...I worry that you're fighting somewhere now. Are you in danger? If I know you, you'll have wormed your way straight into the heart of the action. But...dammit, Lin. I don't think I'll show you these recordings. But I have to remember what everyone says. I have to learn everything I can, and follow all the clues until they lead to you. If you're fighting, I'm going to fight with you. If you're building weapons, I'll learn about machina until I can help. I just--dammit!" He slammed a fist against the rock face. "I hope you're all right."
The transmission ended. I stared at the blank screen, feeling the deepest frustration I'd ever experienced. Even if I could get a message to the Machine Faction, there was no way Gippal would let me tell him where I was--he'd come charging out here, with my luck reporters would follow him, and my whole cover would be blown. Could anyone at least get the message through that I was all right, and that I was coming back as soon as I could? Tyssed...I was as trapped as he was.
So if I wanted to get home, I'd have to dig up a lot of parts so the Faction could build its weapons. But if those weapons ended up getting sold to New Yevon...the Aurochs were all Youth Leaguers, and so were most of my friends. What if I was finding the parts that would be used to make the guns that would kill them? What if some of the New Yevonites found out where I was and came to kill me? Again, I wondered if there was any way to get out of here. It wouldn't be that hard to stow away inside a shipping crate in Sanna's freight hover, or convince Buddy and Aniki to take me back to Besaid. Wasn't it more important that I help the Youth League by protecting my new hometown from what might be imminent invasion?
There was no way. Hiding in a hover would let me out at Djose, and I'd almost certainly get caught and sent right back. And even if I made it to Besaid, what was I going to do there? Beclem would have heard about the trouble I'd caused. He'd probably enjoy reporting me to Miyu and Nooj himself, and then I'd really have it coming. There was no telling how long a war might last--I could be here for months or even years, especially if I didn't find more parts. I was starting to get really depressed. I was royally screwed, and there was no way around it.
Watching Bickson's transmission reminded me of the sphere Benzo and I had found in the sub. I sighed. My shower could wait until I'd seen what was on it. If it was worth anything, the Gullwings might pay through the nose for it. Hey, knowing Gippal, maybe I could use the money to buy my way out.
I took out the sphere and popped it into the base of the commsphere. It took a while to register on the screen, and when it did it was pretty grainy. But I could see that the background was some kind of tropical village--there were buildings like the ruins in Besaid. It didn't look like any place in Besaid I'd ever seen, though, I noticed. I didn't recognize it as any place in Kilika either, but maybe there was somewhere I hadn't been. Or maybe whatever port it was had changed since then; this sphere definitely looked old. I could hear gulls calling and a breeze over the water. It was obviously a gorgeous day there; the palm trees were swaying gently and the sky was a clear, pure blue.
I heard footsteps and then a person appeared in front of the screen. The first thing I noticed was the mottled blue-brown skin and then the stiffly kinky hair splayed in all directions. It was a Guado--I felt my skin crawl and there was a sharp pain in my right hand as the knuckles cracked--but it was wearing a long dress and the hair was grown long. When the figure turned to face the camera, I added that to the delicate facial features and decided that it was a female, and a young one. But what was a Guado doing in Kilika? Even before they'd fled to Macalania in fear of being attacked by my people and the Ronso, the Guado had rarely left Guadosalam. Weird.
"Good morrow," the small Guado female said in a high, cultured-sounding voice. Something in it--the pitch, or maybe the inflection--reminded me of hearing Seymour speak two years ago. It wasn't much like Nav's scratchy voice. She was speaking in English, but it was a strange kind of English I'd never heard before. "I am Chelza, of the city of Zanarkand, greatest in all of Spira. It is that place from which my family does come, but this terrible war has forced us to flee here, to the isle of Bikanel."
What the--? War? There had only been one major war in the recorded history of Spira, and that was the Machina War a thousand years ago. If she came from Zanarkand, then this must be... that old? Sphere hunters would pay a fortune for it.
Then the second part of her statement hit me. Bikanel? Bikanel was an island, all right, but it was dead and sandy, nothing like the paradise the young female Guado was standing in. When had it ever looked like that?
"My father has remained there to fight." The girl looked down and bit her lip. "It is only my mother and my young brother Gar who have accompanied me here. In eleven years, I have never seen such a place! Such lush and verdant jungles, such blue waters and cool breezes. It does warm my heart that if I cannot live in the beauty of Zanarkand created by man, I may at least live here in the beauty of nature."
So she was an eleven-year-old refugee. And the entire island was an oasis. This was getting trippier and trippier by the moment, and it only got worse when she looked up with a gleam in her small dark eyes and said, "When the war has ended, my father promised me that he will come for us. He said that there will be a great concert to celebrate Zanarkand's victory! I cannot wait until I can return--my father told me that perhaps Lenne, the most famous songstress in all of Spira, will sing! In the past, I have only seen her on our sphere, but it is said that she is even more beautiful and sings even more wonderfully in person. When I am older, I wish to be a songstress who will light up the stage as she does!"
I half-smiled in spite of myself. Naaga had talked like that when she was a little kid too. Rikku still did, actually. Still dreaming of fame and glory. Then again...didn't I do that too? I wondered if maybe the Guado hadn't always been as barbaric as they were now, or if she was just too young to have learned it yet. She seemed so...normal.
"But I do worry that I may be kept from this goal," Chelza continued thoughtfully, sitting down in front of the sphere. Her long skirt stretched as she crossed her legs in the lotus position and set her chin in her hands. "In all the time I can remember, I have never yet seen a songstress who looked like me. It seems that only those like Lenne are beautiful enough to sing for Spira's people--those with creamy skin and long brown hair. I worry that because I am Guado, others may try to keep me from the stage."
I stopped cracking my knuckles and stared at the sphere. I'd thought the same thing when I was her age--I can't blitz unless I join the Psyches. No other team will ever take an Al Bhed. No one will ever come to see my games. There's no way to make it in this world unless you're a Yevonite. So the Guado had gone through the same thing as the Al Bhed. Interesting--but then, I reflected, it was different, after all. After everything they and their leader had done, the Guado deserved whatever they got. The Al Bhed had never done anything except keep alive the ancient traditions of Zanarkand.
"But I will not let them," the Guado said on the screen, jutting her small pointed chin out defiantly. "I shall be the biggest star Spira has seen since time began! It has been only a few months since my father sent word for us. Soon, I am sure that the war will end and he will call us home for Lenne's concert!" There was a small snuffling sound and a chubby little Guado toddler wondered onto the screen. He was sucking his thumb and dragging a stuffed Moogle along the ground with his other hand. Naaga had a Moogle like that too.
"Chel," he whimpered, "I am afraid. In the street, they are saying that Zanarkand is losing the war. They predict that the Bevellians shall descend upon the refugees on this island within days."
He looked about four, but he was talking like he was thirty-four. I was used to Al Bhed whiz kids, but Chelza had used that weird formal dialect too. Was this Old Guado? I should ask Benzo.
Chelza hesitated, and I caught a hint of wild fear like an animal's in her small black eyes before she turned to the little boy and smiled. "These are merely rumors, Gar. They are falsehoods. We shall be at home again soon, you shall see." She scooped him up in her arms and he slung his own chubby ones around her neck, the Moogle swinging by its arm through the air. "Come," she cooed soothingly, "Let us go. Perhaps Mother will allow you to have just one sweet before dinner."
"Really?" he squealed, and I smiled again. At least he was still just a regular kid in some ways.
"Assuredly." Chelza smiled again and shifted her brother into one arm and reached out with the other towards the sphere. The image ground to a slow halt.