The Sound of Birds
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Like suddenly noticing the sound of birds for the first time
Upon awakening in the morning
I finally noticed how cold this cheek was
Upon being gently touched
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"Ah, I'm exhausted!" Yuna walked into the bridge of the Celsius, head hanging. Her cousin, Rikku, came in behind her, arms resting behind her head, and Paine stood at the back, her posture collected as always. They had just returned from a mission in Bikanel Desert where a sphere had been detected. It should have been easy, had they been able to pinpoint the exact location of the sphere. Instead, YRP had had to search the desert for it; and Bikanel was just so big.
Brother turned around from the pilot seat. "Yuna!" he wailed, waving his arms madly. "Es cu cunno! E ghaf E cruimthd ryja syta oui ku uid drana ymuha! E cruimt ryja kuha fedr oui!" He started to run to her, only to be held back by Buddy.
"Sorry about that, Yuna," Buddy said, struggling as he restrained Brother. "Did you manage to find the sphere?"
"Yeah, we did after looking through the ENTIRE desert!" Rikku interjected, holding the bright blue object in her outstretched palm. She ran down the stairway and dropped it into Shinra's lap.
"Well," Paine said, turning back towards the open doors of the bridge, "I think I'll turn in for the night."
Yuna nodded at her companion. "Good idea. I just want to see what's in the sphere first." She waved to her departing friend.
A few minutes passed with Yuna looking over Shinra's shoulder, and Rikku pacing the bridge impatiently.
"Yuna, Rikku," Shinra called over the back of his seat, "I'm done analyzing the sphere." The four remaining members of the Gullwings ran over to crowd around the boy.
"Ohh, I hope it's something good this time!" Rikku said excitedly. "Not those boring Besaid shots again, at least."
Yuna gave a small laugh. "Well, let's find out!" She reached over and pressed the small red button on the side of the blue sphere.
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"Brother!" a female voice shouted. The blue tinted screen of the sphere bounced a few times as a figure in the distance grew closer. The person that the sphere-holder was approaching was clearly an Al-Bhed with his blond mohawk, numerous tattoos, and swirled green eyes. "Hey, Brother, look at this!"
"Fryd?" Brother asked. "What is that?"
The Al-Bhed disappeared behind the screen as the first ran beside him. "It's a sphere! Watch this…" The sphere zoomed out and panned around to show a large stadium enclosing the two. "It can record all of this too!"
"Ehdanacdehk…"
The sphere continued to turn until it rested on the long corridor out of the stadium. "I figured we could start recording our pilgrimage. You know, like a journal or something." The speaker, a young girl of seventeen or so with long dark hair, ran in front of the screen. "Um… hello! I'm Fey, and this"--the sphere moved to show Brother--"is my first guardian, Brother." The screen turned back onto Fey. "As you might be able to see, we're in Luca Stadium right now. We've already made it past Besaid and Kilika from Home!" She stopped speaking, eyes upturned to the sky. "Let's see… what else…?" She looked around her. "Oh, we tried to get some tickets to the blitzball tournament, but they were all sold out. Well, I don't really like watching blitzball anyway." Fey looked over the sphere's top, watching something past it. "Hey, don't make that face! I just got sick of it back home, okay?"
The sphere was roughly taken from Fey's hands. "E tuhd caa fro oui kud drec drehk," Brother muttered unenthusiastically. He turned it over, holding it haphazardly on its side. "Eh? Fryd ec dryd pmehgehk nat mekrd?" The screen shuddered as Brother shook the sphere violently.
"What's that blinking red light?" Fey's deep red skirt came into view as she stepped towards Brother and the overturned sphere. "Brother, what'd you do? Look, stop shaking it or you're gonna break--"
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The sphere shut off with a click, the screen fading into black. For what was possibly the first time ever, the bridge of the Celsius was dead silent.
"Huh?" Rikku said loudly, breaking the stillness. "Wait a minute…"
All eyes turned to Brother.
Buddy stepped closer to him. "That was you… wasn't it?"
"F-fryd?" Brother stuttered, inching away from the group towards the door. "No! That was not… E tu hud muug mega…" He had reached the doorway out of the bridge and was holding onto the doorframe."Dryd ec hud sa!"
"Oh, pu-leeze, Brother," Rikku remarked, rolling her eyes, "who else would honestly want to look like that?"
"Brother, wait!" Yuna shouted. But he had already run through the corridor, out of sight.
"What was that about?" Rikku said, looking back to the group. "I mean, I was just kidding…"
Shinra, who had been quiet for a while, spoke up. "None of you know anything about that girl in the sphere, do you? Maybe that can give us some clue."
Buddy held a hand up to his chin, shifting his weight onto one leg as he thought. "Now that you mention it, her name does sound familiar…"
"Well," Yuna said, "she said they were on a pilgrimage and that Brother was her guardian, so she must have been a Summoner, right?"
"That's right," Buddy agreed, "I remember now… Fey was found outside of Home a few years ago. Stayed at Home for a while, but then something happened… Rikku, you were there, don't you remember anything?"
"Hm…" Rikku pondered, her gaze averted to the ceiling. "I kind of remember seeing her in Home a few times when she stayed with us. But Brother and I were out looking for machina a lot when she was there. Didn't she summon something though? Something about Sinspawn?"
"Yeah!" Buddy exclaimed, pounding his fist into his palm. "She summoned a forbidden aeon, one that was locked away in Home by Yevon a long time ago."
"Leviathan?" Shinra interrupted.
"That's the one," Buddy nodded. "Not really sure how, but she did it. Then she left for something, and… well, I'm not really sure what happened to her after that."
Rikku sat down on the ground, legs splayed out. "But wasn't there something else about her? Something really weird… like, no one would believe her about it."
The four sat quietly again, lost in thought.
"Zanarkand!" Rikku suddenly yelled. "She said she was from Zanarkand!" She paused, then looked up at Yuna with a mix of surprise and confusion on her face. "Yunie, you don't think…"
Yuna faced the corridor that Brother had run through a few minutes earlier. "I don't know, Rikku…" She turned back to her cousin, a small smile on her lips. "But it can't hurt to find out, can it?"
Rikku jumped back up, punching the air with her fist. "That's the spirit, Yunie! At this rate, we'll find Tidus in no time!"
"Yeah, you're right!" Yuna said, smiling. But even a smile could not rid her of the doubt in her mind.
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Yuna walked quietly through the doorway, her eyes searching the room. She wasn't exactly sure why she was here. She had told the others that she was tired and going to bed for the night; without even realizing it, she had gone a floor farther down on the elevator and now found herself in the doorway of the engine room.
Her eyes fell on what they had been searching for: Brother sitting on the far end of the room, wrench in hand, cursing loudly at the machines in Al Bhed.
Yuna snuck up behind him and leaned casually on the railing. "You sure you know what you're doing?"
She almost laughed as he jumped and spun around with a shaken expression, but just grinned at him instead.
"Y-Yuna! It is just you," Brother said with relief, holding a hand to his chest as he breathed deeply.
"Just me?" Yuna said teasingly, head cocked to the side. She didn't know why she was digressing so much from what she wanted to say. She just didn't feel like it was right to ask him, somehow.
"I-I did not mean, E sayh... dryd ec hud... Cunno…" His voice faded at a loss of words.
"Brother?" She smiled again at his discomfort. "Don't worry about it."
Still slightly uncomfortable, Brother tried to change the subject. "You are here for what?" he asked.
Yuna stopped for a minute, still debating whether or not to ask him. 'Oh' she thought, 'What do I have to lose?'
"Well, Brother…" Yuna continued slowly, "it's just… well, I was just wondering… That girl in the sphere, Fey, right? Who… who was she?"
Brother's eyes widened at the name, and he turned back to the machina he had previously been tampering with. Yuna was about to apologize and leave when he replied, "Fey… she was a Summoner, like you." He put the wrench down beside him as he continued speaking. "She was from outside Home. She summoned Leviathan, forbidden aeon."
"That's what Buddy and Rikku said. But, why were you with her? In that sphere, I mean."
He leaned back, resting himself on his hands, and faced the ceiling. "After summoning, she wanted to be a Summoner." He gave a small smile. "Vydran made me go as guardian. Fey liked recording. Made lots of spheres like the Luca one."
"So… What happened to her?" Yuna questioned, her curiosity overtaking her.
Brother's eyes never left the ceiling. "She…" He lapsed into silence, still not looking at Yuna.
A few minutes of awkward silence passed before Yuna placed a hand on Brother's shoulder and said softly, "I… I'm sorry. I shouldn't have asked. Um… I'm getting a little tired, so I think I'll go to bed now." She started to walk out of the room, and she turned one last time to look back at Brother; he still had not moved. "Goodnight, Brother."
Yuna walked out of the small engine room and went back into the elevator, pressing the button to the Cabin. For some reason, she couldn't get Brother's expression when she had mentioned Fey's name out of her head, but most of all, she couldn't forget the look his face had held when she had asked about the Summoner's present condition. She couldn't help but wonder what had happened to her. Being a Summoner, Fey's name should have been well known, even if she hadn't completed her pilgrimage successfully; however, Yuna had never even heard her name, much less known anything about her.
Yuna thought back to what Brother had said. 'Fey liked recording. Made lots of spheres like the Luca one.' The Gullwings had been able to find one of Fey's spheres; perhaps her other recordings were also hidden around Spira.
By the time the elevator had stopped at the Cabin, Yuna had resolved to find Fey's other spheres and to uncover both Brother's past and the truth of what had happened to his Summoner.
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A/N: This is the rewrite of Kirei na Kanjou The story is changed somewhat though it's still the same idea, and I've also altered it to fit the FFX-2 storyline; the main character was also altered a bit. There was a lot in KnK that I didn't really like, so I'm hoping to fix it here. Hopefully the story will be clearer this time, and I'll be able to add more things that I wanted to and delete/fix some others.
Also, the Al Bhed is not translated in the story because 1) Yuna does not understand or speak Al Bhed fluently, and 2) Fey does not understand or speak Al Bhed either. The other characters, depending if they know Al Bhed or not may understand it. It doesn't affect the story, and most of the time you can kind of figure out what they're saying through context… but I'll have the translations at the end of each chapter anyway.
Oh, and for the Disclaimer: I don't own FFX-2 or any of the characters in it and this fanfic, except for Fey. The song at the beginning is also not mine; it's from the anime Noir, and the lyrics are from the song Kirei na Kanjou (transliteration by Takayama Miyuki and translation by Miyuki Mouse).
Al Bhed Translations:
"Es cu cunno! E ghaf E cruimthd ryja syta oui ku uid drana ymuha! E cruimt ryja kuha fedr oui!" - "I'm so sorry! I knew I shouldn't have made you go out there alone! I should have gone with you!"
"Fryd?" - "What?"
"Ehdanacdehk…" - "Interesting..."
"E tuhd caa fro oui kud drec drehk... Fryd ec dryd pmehgehk nat mekrd?" - "I don't see why you got this thing... What is that blinking red light?"
"F-fryd? E tu hud muug mega... Dryd ec hud sa!" - "W-what? I do not look like... That is not me!"
"E sayh... dryd ec hud... Cunno…" - "I mean... that is not... Sorry..."