"You will pay the price for your treachery, Japu!"
Aula stared at the disgraced Summoner. He had been caught using his Summons to demand a tithe from a village, keeping them hostage by his power.
He smirked at her. "Aula. You always were a pitiful Summoner. You might be of the Lady's line, but you have none of her talent, nor even her beauty." He raised his hands. "Come to me, Bahamut!"
The sky split open. The dragon streamed downwards, slamming into the ground as it landed.
Aula threw her arm out, gesturing to her two companions. "Move! I'm calling him!"
Leira grabbed Mafri, dragging the Guado to safety as Aula's slender hands spun her staff, raising it upwards. Her eyes; one blue, one green; closed as she chanted.
"Please aid me, Samurai of the night, Guardian of Truth. Appear."
The sky blackened, dark roiling clouds churning the sky. Darkness encompassed the area.
The sound of something splattering against the ground reached them first. Eerie silence other than the dripping pushed around them, even Bahamut seemed disturbed by the encroaching presence.
From the darkness, he emerged. His long robes were the darkest red, made of pure blood which dripped onto the ground as he walked forwards. His bare feet were stained with dirt and blood, the robe trailing back and forth over them marking them red.
His belt was black as hate, his long hair trailed in an unfelt breeze. He was tall, not as tall as Bahamut, but his presence seemed infinitely more powerful.
He tilted his face up, it was a broken white mask, cracked over one side. One black eye stared forwards, the other nothing more than a bloodied socket. He unfolded his hands from his robes and brought them together, a sword emerged in his folded fingers, long and deadly looking.
The one dark eye looked at Aula. She nodded and stepped back. She would have no more part in this battle.
The aeon turned to Bahamut. His mouth twisted and he pointed his sword, mouthing words so arcane that even the scholars had forgotten them.
Then, he struck.
- - - - -
Leira looked to where Japu lay bound on the ground. His aeons were incapacitated and with bound hands he would have no magic to call upon.
"Lady Aula, you have never told us how you found the Guardian. I mean," she frowned and tapped her foot. "Not how your found him but... he said he never wanted to help you. What did you agree to? You said when a year had passed, we would return and you would tell us. A year has nearly passed, my Lady."
Aula nodded thoughtfully. It had nearly been a year. A year since she had stumbled across the hidden cavern of the lost Fayth. A year since she had gone to gain the aeon that only the Lady herself had ever wielded.
She had gone to prove her place as the Lady's heir. Now, she was tearing apart the very kingdom she had inherited.
"I can't tell you yet, Leira. I'm sorry. Not until we return." She pushed back her hair. "We must set out for the cavern tomorrow. I must not break my promise. Enough people did that."
"Is it something to do with the Bevelle archives?" Leira leant in closer.
"Not until we reach the cavern. I'm sorry." She smiled sadly at Leira. "This story has waited four hundred years to be told. It will wait another three days."
She rolled over and went to sleep, trying not to think about the temptation of not going back. Not now. Not ever.
But she could not do that. She gave her word. Even if it meant giving up the greatest power left on the land.
- - - - -
They delivered Japu to the authorities, or rather, the Crusaders who had joined them. The Crusaders had been instructed to no longer wear the customary garb of their post, the red and black clothing that marked them aside. It was one of the things that had been requested by her eccentric fayth.
She led her companions, the Al Behd gun warrior Leira and the sorcerous Guado Mafri, back to the cavern.
A year ago, she had brought them here to search for power, and she had been asked why she wanted it.
She took them into the chamber. "Please..." she asked them. "Understand why I'm doing this."
And she called forth the fayth. He appeared as he had when she first came here, a glow of light that shied away from the group. "Summoner... you have come to keep your promise?"
"Yes, Sir." She knelt down, not out of respect for the fayth, but for the man he had once been. "I promised you freedom. But first, I want to tell you something."
He watched her, she was sure of it, waiting for what she had to say.
"I want to make the world better. I want to know the truth, no matter how much I dislike it. I want honour to mean something. I want to have the power to make people change, by showing them a different way."
She could feel him smile. "You know now, why you're setting me free?"
"Yes." She took a deep breath. "Because you cannot give me the power to change things. Only I can do that."
"Yes..." He sighed happily. "Let me go to him, Aula. I miss him."
She nodded. She knew the truth, it was her duty to two great heroes. "He misses you too."
Stepping back, she started to dance. The pyre flies spread outwards, and she felt them whisper past her.
"Thank you."
- - - - -
Leira and Mafri sat staring at Aula as she looked at the grey, empty stone statue. "You just... the rarest, most powerful aeon... and you just sent it!"
Aula nodded and looked at Leira. "I owed it to him. It was the price for his service." She sighed. "We can go back to cavern. I'll explain. I'll explain why I've been digging up all those horrid truths about the Lady. I'll let you in on it."
They walked back to the cavern. The companions were silent as they followed their Summoner out into the sunlight, away from the empty Fayth cavern.
"I owe you both this story." Aula sat down and stared into the fire. "It started a year ago...."
- - - - -
Aula dropped to her knees in front of the statue. Her mouth started to softly form the words, calling upon the sleeping fayth to grant her the aeon power it held.
The bright colours the statue shifted, and pyre flies started to gather in the centre of the room.
"Summoner..."
She looked up. No figure was visible, just a mass of light that shifted and flickered, as though impatient to be gone.
"Fayth who gives us strength, fayth who gives up aeons, I humbly beseech you for your power."
The lights darkened. "Why? What do you want, summoner?" They zoomed in closer, and she could feel a face looking at her from in the mass. "Why do you seek power?"
This wasn't suppose to happen. Aula looked from side to side. Fayth just nodded and bestowed the power upon them, unless it was their first.
"Well? Why do you seek power?"
"I, I want to fight for my country." She lowered her face again. "The lands of the Lady must stand strong."
"Wrong answer."
She looked up as the light started to fade away. "Wait, fayth, please!"
"Return when you know why you seek my power... or you have something to offer me other than empty words."
The pyre flies disappeared. Aula stared at the empty room in shock.
- - - - -
"Lady Aula?"
She looked at her company. The two of them watched her anxiously.
"It... it told me to go away."
The stunned gasps were comforting, to know that it was not just she who was shocked by the fayth's behaviour.
"How...?" Leira shook her braids out. "The fayth insulted you?"
"Not exactly... It just told me to come back when I knew why I wanted the power." she sat down on a rock, clutching her staff to her chest. "I am of the line of the First lady... Fayth like me."
Leira patted her shoulder. The tiny Al Behd was fingering her guns absently, eyes flickering to the pad that led into the Cavern.
"I told you this cave was cursed, Lady. We should not have come here." Mafri looked about fearfully. "The legends..."
"The legends say that a fayth is here, a powerful fayth who was difficult to deal with. The Lady hid him away so that only the worthy would reach him." Aula sighed. "Why do I want his power? I want to defend our lands, the land granted to us by the Lady all those years ago."
"We should return to the cavern entrance," Leira warned. "The fiends grow more unsettled."
"Yes." Aula stood, patting Mafri's shoulder as she passed him. "Mafri first. Then I will follow."
Mafri's long green hair spiked around his face as he turned to look at her. "May the Lady watch you."
Aula smiled and shook her head as Mafri disappeared in a beam of light.
"You next, Lady Aula."
She stepped on, and appeared in the cavern entrance next to Mafri. The pale glow of the memory sphere threw light on Leira as she appeared.
They made camp for the night.
- - - - -
Aula sat up, watching Leira and Mafri sleep. She didn't know what a fayth could possibly want and she didn't know why she wanted the power.
She just... she felt that she should have it.
Maybe that was it. She smiled to herself. Maybe, all she had to do was tell the truth.
She left a note for her companions and stepped onto the plate, letting it whisk her directly into the camber of the Fayth.
She knelt and started to pray, watching as the lights formed about her again.
"Summoner... you again. What do you want?"
Her bravery left her. "I... I want to know what I can offer you, in exchange for your services."
"Hmm." The lights drifted for a few moments, almost thoughtful in their movement. "Nothing. There is nothing that you could offer me that I want."
She grasped for something. "Gil?"
It laughed, a deep rumbling laugh. "I have no use for money. Where would I spend it? What would I buy?"
"What about... I could let you see the world."
"I have seen this world many times. Too many times."
She lowered her face. "May I at least see you, fayth?"
There was an almost sigh of wind through the cavern and the lights dimmed, coalescing into a solid form. "Better?"
He was not old, but not young. His face was scarred, his arm tucked in his kimono in the sign of the Crusaders. "You were a Crusader?"
He laughed, tipping his head. His mouth was hidden by his coat, a long tail of hair swinging into sight. "No. I was a Guardian. I was a Ronin of the Church of Yevon."
"Yevon... Yu Yevon? How did a heretic guardian become a sacred Fayth of our Lady?" She seated herself more comfortably, looking up at the fayth.
He chuckled unpleasantly. "These statues were of Yevon long before they were of the Lady. Before Yevon..." He shrugged. "Who knows? I don't remember." He looked down at her, his form disintegrating and reforming again. "What do you really want, Summoner? Why do you seek out a fayth who was punished with isolation?"
"Punished?" She smiled softly at the poor creature. "You don't understand. The Lady hid away her greatest Fayth, so that only the truly deserving could reach it." She nodded. "I am the first of her line to show the gift in over eight generations."
"Rubbish."
Her wide eyes stared at his face, full of contempt as it was. "What...?"
"Summoning is not a gift. It is a dedication. It is a politician's work, conniving and supplicating and begging for power that has never been earned."
She stood up, pointing her staff at him. "I fought hard to be here! I have prayed all over the lands, from Zanarkand to Bevelle. I even hold the blessing of the sisters of the flowers." She stood straight. "I worked hard."
"Hard?" He spat. "A summoner does not know what hard work is. Go away, little girl. I have no business with arrogant children. I am sick of your type."
"No!" She grasped at him as he started to fade. "I'm sorry, please don't go away." She stared at him. "Please, tell me about your world. About what hard work is..."
He watched her with a suspicious gaze. "You must not interrupt me with criticism. What I have to tell you, you will not like. You will most likely not believe. I have faced this before."
She nodded. He seemed familiar.
"Many years ago.... no. I will be honest." He moved to the edge of the glass dome. "You know the history of Spira? Of Yu Yevon, the war and the origin of summoners?"
"Yes." She nodded. "And Sin."
"Sin." He whispered. "Yes, always Sin. Sin was the price for pride, for arrogance, for abandoning and isolating, for cruelty. Sin was also the price of ignorance and letting the truth be hidden." He shook his head. "Tell me about the Great Calm. The Final Calm. Tell me of it, what you know."
She took a deep breath, wanting to get her story word perfect for the fayth. This must be her test.
"After the Calm of Lord Braska, when Lord Jecht was reborn as Sin, a boy came from the fayth, their gift to Spira. The boy came to our Lady, bearing the truth of the world. He taught her that Sin would not die by her death, but by her life. She gathered the blessings of every fayth, she released them to their power and battled Sin with her Guardians. The fayth gave themselves up to vanquish Sin and Yu Yevon.
"After the battle, the fayth boy was lost, passed onto the Farplane. So our Lady prayed to her beloved dead. Those who had best known the boy were called forth to give them the happy ending that they had earned, to share their love through her life and then reunite in death." She sighed, she loved that bit, it was so romantic. "Those who answered granted her wish, and returned, bringing back the aeons as a gift to thank the Lady for bringing them back to the world of the living."
She looked up at the fayth with hopeful eyes. "The Lady and the fayth boy stayed together in the palace until she died. The fayth were returned to their homes around the lands and there they continue to aid us, for the love they held of the Lady is so strong that they wish to serve her people even now."
"Poor, deluded little girl."
The words were so sad and so spiteful. "What?"
"You want to believe the fairy tale so badly." He shook his head. "The lies... nothing changed, did it? Our sacrifices, our lives, they bought nothing but a new servitude, a new cult." He looked at the ceiling. "She used us. She used and betrayed us." He shook his head. "No, you are not ready for my truth. Just as she wasn't. Just as he wasn't. I am tired of bearing the truth."
"No, please, you said you would tell me the truth." She held out her hand. "Please? I will listen. Just as the Lady had to learn the hard truth of Yevon, I am willing to learn from the fayth."
He sighed and sat down. He pulled a tokkuri from his hip, plonking it onto the cold glass. "Very well."
She stared expectantly.
"I was there... at the Calm. I walked with two Summoners, until Sin fell and Yu Yevon was forced on.
"I left, to what I had earned. But... it was not to be. You must understand, I loved them, I loved them all. But the rogues were causing so much trouble and he said he had to explain to her, that she had to move on.
"She begged us, over and over again. Pleading, praying, crying. It broke her father's heart to hear her prayers every night. It broke everyone's heart. So they asked me, who knew him best, to go and explain it. I had the closest tie to that land, to that state.
"I kissed him good bye and went to her prayers."
He paused. "She was waiting for me. With some of the others. Without aeons, Summoners are nothing. Nothing special. They bound me to the statue, they tied me here. As I woke to my new being, he appeared before us.
"Our love. Hers and mine. She had him taken somewhere, I don't know where. I cannot leave the surface of this stone, not unless a Summoner will carry me with them.
"She called more. They came, believing my imprisonment to be voluntary. Each one strengthened her grip, strengthened the Summoners' power. I never saw him again."
He looked to her. "When she grew old, she had me moved here. To stop me from ever being freed. Other fayth change places, are released and others called. But I am trapped here. And so long as I am here, she has no competition."
Aula's eyes went wide. "Our Lady... you are saying you knew the Lady?"
"Yes." He stood up. "I knew Lady Yuna very well. I cared for her as child, I was her father's Guardian as I was hers." He laughed bitterly. "They once called me Sir. I hated it. Now it seems history has written me out."
"Mafri knows you. The last true Guardian. The last to hear the call. The world walker is what he calls you. You saw all three worlds in your life."
His face softened. "Yes. She called me that once." He smiled. "I will help you, under one condition."
"Yes." She nodded eagerly.
"I will aid you for one year. Then, then you must let me go. You will return here and free me from this place and let me move on. You will show the world the truth I have told you. You need worship no one. Not us, not her, certainly not her. Believe only in each other. Nothing else can be depended on."
One year. It was not long, but... "All right." She bowed low. "I will free you after one year of service and spread the word you gave me. History will not forget you, Sir Auron."
He smiled sadly, and the pyre flies hit into her.
She could feel the aeon... and it was hateful...
- - - - -
"You both remember the first time I summoned him." Aula looked away from the flames. "He scared me so badly but after we went to Bevelle, and I found the pictures, I understood..."
Leira took her hand. "I remember. The tomb was defiled. You made me carve his name back on there and lay offerings for him, including the necklace you took from the main hall."
Mafri nodded. "He had reason to hate them. I understand."
They watched the firelight dwindle, and Aula smiled to herself.
She had seen the blonde boy who had gleefully embraced the departing fayth.
But that would be her secret.