Part Five

Yunie,

How's Bevelle? How's Baralai? Has he popped the question yet?

We finally finished fixing the Celsius. Of course, we have to go right away because Gippal claims he has something important to do with Nooj and Baralai. He won't tell me what, but I hope he's not getting into trouble again!

Write me back, okay?

Love,

Rikku

Yuna finished reading Rikku's letter for the fourth time, sighed, and put it down on the bedside table. Her eyes scanned the dark gold hands of the clock… four o'clock AM.

She laid back down on the bed, staring up at the ceiling again, wishing that she could will herself to sleep. This was the sixth time she'd done this that night. Soon the sun would rise and another day would begin in beautiful Bevelle, and she would have gotten about fifteen minutes of sleep.

Of course, the problem was Baralai. He was so polite and sweet that Yuna couldn't get him out of her head. As they had walked back down the Highbridge, basking in the golden glow of the temple's outside lights, he had chastely offered his arm and walked with her, the same way he had always done.

It made Yuna wonder if his admission, "I am far more interested in you than anyone else," even meant anything. Was Baralai just being polite?

Toying with someone's heart wasn't very polite!

He had slept with Gippal, and had all but admitted that to her without even flinching. Was he gay? Was he just looking for a wife to wear his golden ring and please the Yevon clergy? They had always frowned on gay men, although they turned their eyes away from women. Yuna knew that much, and had always wondered why that was. Perhaps, she thought, they were hiding something.

Was Baralai hiding something?

He was hiding a lot, she knew. He had hidden the existence of Vegnagun from everybody and had even fought against them to protect it. He was good with secrets.

Speaking of secrets… oh, he knew that she had slept with Gippal, too! How could she have been so dumb as to blurt that out, practically throw it in his face? Why could she not act normally in front of him? Why did she have to make inane hair comments and then blurt out that she had slept with a man – Baralai's friend and (former?) lover, no less! – while he was in a relationship with her cousin!

Yuna convinced herself that she was a terrible person. Tidus would be so disappointed in her. She wanted to love him, for he was the first person she had kissed, the first one she had loved, and she had gone to the ends of Spira to find him…

…but she had found Baralai instead. Was it right? Should she really forsake Tidus for a secretive man who had slept with other men?

…should she have forsaken him for Gippal?

Yuna couldn't lay still, distracting her body by working her fingers through the gold fringe of the pillow she was laying her head on. Her thoughts would plague her if she didn't do something else to take her mind off of it. She had forsaken Tidus, she knew it, but she couldn't go back in time and fix it. And she didn't want to be miserable forever!

She stood up and crossed the room, her bare feet making small shifting sounds on the thick carpet. The view out the window held the same view it had an hour ago… a sleeping Bevelle, lights twinkling in the distance from streetlamps and the occasional bright window. It was a beautiful view, but she had gotten enough of it.

The guest rooms were part of an annex, separated from the Temple by a long covered hallway. Yuna wondered what went on in the Temple in the early morning hours, if the sunrise worshippers still came and prayed in the moments before the sun peeked over the horizon.

Maybe, she thought, it would do her some good to say a sunrise prayer. They had been considered the most powerful, she recalled, and it was the stillest and most effective time to communicate with Yevon.

She pulled open the door to her room and stepped into the hallway. Walking around the Temple certainly couldn't hurt.

The sounds of Yuna's bare feet changed from shifting to pattering as she entered the tiled hall of the Temple. Bevelle had a Cloister of Trials just like every other Temple did, but the main hall which housed the statues of the former High Summoners – and a statue of herself, she noted, which gave her an odd feeling that she was watching herself through someone else's eyes – was the grandest of the halls, with the statues gilded in gold, sprinkled with jewels. This Temple also had beautiful stained glass windows in its hall, even though they were dark now because the sun had not yet risen to cast its golden hue on the room below.

Candles cast dim light throughout the room, and a priest nodded at her before continuing on his way down the hall into the breezeway of the Temple. Yuna took a few steps forward, looking up at the ceiling and the gilded statues.

She smiled at the familiar faces of the High Summoners, feeling the warmth of recognition fill her heart with soft light. Yevon was familiar, and it was welcoming to her. Best of all… Gippal wasn't here.

Please keep him out of my heart, she mouthed, looking up at the very apex of the curved ceiling, please let me move on. Tidus, if you're listening, know that I will always love you… but that I know you would want me to be happy. That's all you ever wanted.

Yuna smiled and lowered her head, looking at the golden face of Braska's statue. She missed her father, yes, but he had helped her bring the calm. Without him and the inspiration he gave to her, she would never have been able to accomplish what she did. She was sure that he was proud of her. She stepped forward to bow to him and ask for his advice in prayer – it couldn't hurt to try – but there was someone in her way.

A pale gray shirt and dark brown pants hid him in the shadows of the hall, but a ray of pale yellow light from the rising sun streaked in through the stained glass window above him, sending a cascade of gold over him. His head and face were hidden as he was on his knees, bent with his palms on the floor and the top of his head resting between them. Yuna recognized it instantly as the position of ultimate servitude, when someone had a particularly powerful request and was pledging their eternal devotion for the fulfillment of the prayer.

He lifted his head as the light from the window intensified with the rising sun, looking up at the statue of Lord Braska, and instantly Yuna knew she should have expected this.

She should have expected the white hair, askew and uncombed, down and free of its usual bandana, framing the olive skin that had a slightly yellow glow in the light from the window.

She should have expected her heart to stop, should have expected to see him here, should have known that of all the people in the entire world to find here, he was at the top of the list.

She should have expected Baralai.

Her gasp seemed to alert him to her presence, and he turned excruciatingly slowly as he got to his feet. She had seen him in the deepest prayer position, indicating the depth of his prayer… to her father. Even Yuna knew that it was slightly humiliating to be seen in such a position, and here she was, just gawking at Baralai.

She said the only thing that came to her mind, "Your hair's down," and immediately hated herself for it.

Baralai, however, smiled reverently at her, as though she was the answer to his prayer.

Maybe, Yuna thought, she was.

Nooj and Gippal,

As soon as you both arrive, we'll sit down and plan it all out. Thank you both for cooperating with me, and soon we'll be back piloting the ship of Spira – the right way this time.

Baralai