The Day I Died.

Chapter 16. Memento Mori.

Are we nothing but breathing, moving masses of flesh and bone, with no soul to fulfill our deepest and most secret desires? Are we nothing than creatures of blood and the obeyers of our simplistic needs? If the answer was "yes", there would be no religion for mankind to seek refuge in from the cold world what surrounds them.

But in the world of Spira, the word "religion" has gained yet another, more concrete meaning.

Here, soul is the body´s other half, the half that keeps us alive. It is our…life force, our chance to stay spiritually alive for years and years even after our body´s departure to Yevon and it´s return to the dust and shadows…
Her mind thought when racing it´s own insane race of wonder, awe and admire of the newly found fact of the spirit´s departure from the body and mind. Yuna felt cold.

She lies in the dark, stony ground, and her body is limp, dead and unburied.

But as her body is a doll´s corpse, her mind works feverishly. It thinks, it calculates, it remembers. A small thought lingers in the memories of her mind. "Dead people can´t think." Her mind is rejoicing for this fact. But another, bolder thought whispers coldly to her mind´s ear: "…But in Spira they can."

Her mind descends into misery, and Yuna feels how life has escaped her, how her own life betrayed her.

"So, this is how death looks and feels like? Nothing but cold darkness? Must be real fun." The voice of her thoughtsmumbles bitterly. Then the other, bolder thought interrupts it´s musings. "How about opening your eyes and looking around, you twat?" It spits the other inner voice to it´s spiritual eye.

"Hey, that´s a great idea! Why don´t we just get up from this god-awful ground and start to do some sit-ups as well? All right, you smart-ass: when people die, they usually lie in the ground stiff as a wooden blank and cold as a fish. This body is NOT supposed to get up! And where is that good ol´ soul, anyway?" The first inner voice whines, and the other inner voice rolls it´s spiritual eyes respectively.

"Dunno. But I get the most oddest feeling that this body of ours keeps breathing even when our dear buddy of soul has vanished somewhere. Wanna try to move around a bit? Just to see if we really are dead?" The voice lures.

"Sure." The other agrees. They both nod in agreement.

"Alright. Now, open-"

"- your eyes!" A male voice commands in the brink of hysteria, and Yuna´s mismatched eyes shoot wide open, and the furious shoulder shaking has helped to regain her consciousness as well. Suddenly, her whole field of vision is filled with the colours of indigo, violet and frosty lilac. It takes a long time for her to realize that a pair of lilac eyes are staring right to her own.

"Welcome back, lady Yuna." Seymour´s shaky voice reaches her ears, and Yuna smiles weakly back at him. "I had this weird dream…that my soul had simply wandered off somewhere and my own thoughts were bickering whether I was still alive or not…odd, isn´t it?" She whispers with weak, sore voice but Seymour only stares at her. He brushes aside a strand of her hair, and cups her cheek in his palm.

Yuna´s brows furrow more deeply and her smile dims as more silence is heard. Seymour does not answer.

"Seymour…what´s wrong?" Her voice quivers, and Seymour does not know whether to laugh or cry. The corner of his mouth keeps twitching; a sure sign that something is wrong."Yuna…I am so very sorry. I couldn´t stop him! N- Now you are lost and it´s all my fault." He speaks, and his voice trembles with unseen troubles.
"Seymour…?" Yuna whispers, and her eyes show immense worry for him. "Hush now…I´ll make it all go away." Seymour whispers and touches her lips with his forefinger. His eyes are glossy and dimmed. His voice, as low as it is, is also feverish and Yuna cannot yet comprehend what has happened to him, or to her.

"We are in Bevelle again. This is a room where the infidels and criminals of upper class are kept…we ought to flee, as soon as possible." Seymour says, and Yuna stares at him in wonder. "…Seymour, why Serian didn´t kill me?" Her odd question startles him. Seymour glances at her pale face with a grim face.
"…Because you have something what he wants. Spheres. He spoke to me about a purple sphere, and I remember how he said that it could ruin his plans for a new, pure world. And that he had some others too, but they disappeared and you must have took them. He wants them back."

Yuna blinked. "A sphere…?" she mumbled.

"Yes! You…haven´t seen the purple one, have you? Have you shown it to anyone? Anyone at all?" His question was disturbingly passionate, and Yuna furrowed her brows. "…No, I haven´t." She replies, and Seymour´s shoulders slumps down, and a small, relieved gasp escapes from him. Before she could inquire him further from the matter of that sphere, Seymour continues to speak. "Retrieving the spheres weren´t his only objective. Serian needs your power, Yuna. You are a summoner, and your father´s daughter. He demands you to send the souls of the dead in Guadosalam to Farplane. For what cause, I do not know…there are plenty of other apprentice summoners available. Why won´t he use them?"
"I don´t know. But what are we going to do now?" Yuna asks, and Seymour smiles sadly at her. "It´s night now, and the door is firmly sealed. There´s no getting out. I tried it already…we have to spend our night together in this rat hole". He mumbles, and turns to look at the scenery from the barred window. For a high ranked nobleman as he was, the room was a rat hole. In Yuna´s opinion, the room was quite nice, actually. A barred window let in the moonlight, a wide bed was in the corner and a wooden bed side table was it´s companion, but the room held nothing more. A perfect space to accommodate high-class criminals, after all.

Seymour stood silently in front of the window for a while, and his hands were hanging loosely in his sides, and his heavy sighs startled her.

Something is troubling him, Yuna knew, but she wasn´t sure what could have happened to make him so grim. She felt that her heart would burst from sheer emotion what possessed her now, and she needs to confess her thoughts to him.
"Seymour…no matter what happens, I will still care deeply for you." Yuna whispers, but Seymour´s shoulders slumps down even lower and his head is still bowed in a gloomy fashion.
"Oh really? You would…? Despise everything?" He mumbles almost incoherently. "…I think not." A small whisper echoes in the room, and even Seymour is scared of his own cold remark. "What are you talking about?" Yuna whispers in fear and walks closer to Seymour. Suddenly he turns to face her and his face is twisted in such agony and pain that Yuna startles from the sight. "What´s wrong? Is there something….you want to tell me?" She asks in confusion, and Seymour smiles with effort.
"With me…? N-No, there´s nothing to tell. After all, I have been honest with you…Yuna, can I-" He walks closer to the young woman. "Yuna, can I kiss you?"

Her whole being shines with surprise and anticipation as she nods faintly, and Seymour kisses her lips with such fierce, overwhelming passion that Yuna feels her breath being drawn out, and she backs out from his tight, possessing embrace.
"Kiss my troubles away…please." Seymour pleads with small, pained voice and she can do nothing but to look in those eyes, which were so dismal and dangerous in one moment and days later only affectionate and warm, at least to her.
"Tell me what has happened." Yuna whispers to his ear, and almost instantly his long arms surround her petite frame, and he embraces her like never wanting to let go. "Not now…you will see soon enough…" Seymour whispers and chokes the last words into mere sobs of a desperate man. "Seymour…what are you-" Yuna begins, but she never gets the chance to finish when Seymour kisses her again. The kiss is long, full of love and still, it hid something else as well…a terrible emotion, an emotion to be kept in secrecy; in the darkness of Seymour´s own mind.

:

Laetitia Honoré was in deep sleep, when her husband silently sat down on her bed and gazed at the noble woman next to him. Serian could never understand why she loved him; she had been the only one who did, after all. The only one…He furrowed his brows to this thought, but it didn´t really matter to him. The only important thing was that she was right here, for him to love and cherish as his treasure and only hope.

Embarrassment burned his mind; Serian felt so ashamed to lose the control of his own mind in front of that half-breed summoner. But what Serian didn´t know, or rather, didn´t realize, that ever since his son passed away, it was constantly harder for him to get a grip of his own swirling, ill thoughts. It was constantly eating him away, and the boy in the mirror haunted his thoughts. The fear of splitting in two was now slowly consuming him.

After all, that boy wasn´t really him. Serian had a faint memory that the boy was somehow very important to him, but he had already forgotten why. He didn´t remember much of his own past, anyway. Like it would matter, after all. Serian thought with uncaring bitterness, but yet again the cross-breed summoner invaded his mind. How come she looks so much like my love? He wondered, and glanced at his resting wife. He compared these two in his mind: they had the same cinnamon coloured hair, their porcelain skin seemed to radiant with life itself and they both were petite but yet so powerful.

Was the half-breed my wife´s sister? That can´t be. She had no siblings. They can´t be related in any way…This enigma puzzled his complex mind, and he was frustrated for not finding the answer he sought.
But another puzzle had also remained in the hazy borders of his comprehension: how come the daughter of the High Summoner had been in his dreams for so long…ever since Sin perished? In his dream, they would always meet in ethereal meadow. And he would do things to her….terrible things. Things he had not done to anyone before the night of purification in Guadosalam. In the dreams, he had felt such unseen hatred and bitterness, and it frightened him. Not because he felt such things, no, but because he felt something else too, for her…he felt something warm and especially when he hurt her, then that feeling would only grow stronger.

Was that a sign? An omen? Serian thought grimly, and the answer dawned to him very soon, and his lilac eyes flew wide open from realization. Of course…the Binding. We are connected then. I feel her just as much she feels me. How simple.

The Binding was his own trait which he had mastered during his long years of loneliness. Others would call him as "the soul reaper" but to him it mattered not. Already as a young boy, Serian had discovered that he possessed great powers. He had always surpassed the other children in magic and at the age of fifteen he knew more spells than many adults did in their lifetime. Serian was furious when his father didn´t care about his son´s excellence, but as time crawled by and years made Serian more confident about his own abilities and tougher to endure his father´s constant belittling, he then decided that he didn´t need anyone´s approval. He could sought the mastery of magic on his own.

The time was his friend, and it was also on his side, as Serian decided to abandon his father´s teachings about those simple spells such as holy and ultima and create whole new spells of his own! He wanted to feel more stronger against other people´s verbal abuse, and he wanted them to feel his pain too. No ultima could make you feel such things as he had, and thus, the Bounding was created.

But when he unleashed his power for the first time, he understood something else as well. The Bounding didn´t only make you feel more confident about your own powers, and it didn´t only make others feel what you felt, it also brought you real power.

It made Serian more alive than ever before, and he knew that he devoured the power of the victims´ inner self, their souls. After he had bind his first soul to his own darker one, he realized that he could do things he had never done before.

The first target for his bitterness was a young summoner who had only received his first aeon, but Serian had felt no sympathy for the boy. They both knew and hated each other with fierce passion, after all. Immediately after the Binding, Serian felt something inside of him.

He concentrated all of his powers to produce a thing what flew in the air with it´s massive wings. The creature didn´t look like a bird nor any other animal he had seen.

Serian understood also that he could control the fiends action by his own thoughts.

And how immensely delighted he was when he realized that the thing was actually an aeon…

But Serian still couldn´t understand why he had felt Yuna long before he had made contact with her soul. Thinking about her made him frustrated, and it made his head hurt. Well, in the morning, everything will fall to their right places…Summoner Yuna will tell me everything I need to know, and return my spheres as well. I demand it. With this thought, he laid down right next to his lover and mistress, shutting his eyes. He lie still as dead, and dreamt of the mentally wounded little boy in the mirror, who was his past, present and future.

:

The sun was climbing up to the gloomy horizon arduously, when Yuna´s former guardians entered Spira´s capital city, Bevelle.

Wakka, Lulu and Rikku decided to immediately seek for Yuna after they saw the spheres. They headed straight to the mansion of the Maesters, and the journey was the easiest part. Now they needed to get into the building which seemed to gain more looks of a fortress than a mansion; soldiers clothed in dark seemed to be guarding every single square inch of the building.

"How are we going to get in?" Rikku whispered as they peeked from the nearest corner to the entrance. "I´d say we bust in." Wakka grumped, and Lulu glared him with a look that could kill a grown Behemoth. "Wakka, you know that you are dear to me and such, but respectively, have you lost your mind? Or didn´t you have such thing at all?" She grumbled right back at him, and Wakka shifted his weight from one foot to other in embarrassment. "Well, but ya know, Lu…it´s the only thing I could come up with…" He muttered, and Lulu glared at him. "Indeed." she replied frostily.

"Well, guys, the only chance for us to get in there would be infiltration." Rikku whispered with a sly look on her face. "Meaning?" Lulu cocked her eyebrow. "Well, isn´t it simple? We´ll surprise few soldiers from behind with your clever flare spells, Lulu (I bet they´d be real happy about it) and then we will just simply snatch their clothes and get in as the soldiers! Clever, eh?" Rikku smiled, and everyone agreed.

"That´s a brilliant plan, kiddo. Let´s go!" Wakka beemed, and so they began their sneaky way to the entrance.

:
:

The first rays of the burning sun fell on to Seymour´s face and warmed his bare chest. He lazily stretched in the messy bed, and glanced at Yuna who was still asleep beside him. He smiled at her; she looked like a small child as she slept.

Seymour felt so…complete. He felt so right being with her, and nothing could ever change his feelings towards her. He smiled. He smiled at everything; for her beauty, for him, for because he lies so close to her, for because he loves her, for because…wait. Do I really love her? If I do…then why am I…so sad?" Seymour remembered again what he must do soon. With a heavy mind, he plants a soft kiss on her lips and whispers something so quietly to her ear: "I love you."

Yuna didn´t hear what Seymour had said. She was asleep, but her mind was somewhere else. She was talking to a tall, dark haired man, and the man said something important to her, but she didn´t know what. But this time, there were no stabbing or pain; it was something else…She opened her eyes slowly, and met Seymour´s eyes.

It was him.

For a moment, the two lovers stared to each other´s eyes, with no intention to never avert their gaze from each other. Their blissful moment was however ruthlessly disturbed, when the Lord´s soldiers made their presence known with a loud bang on the door.

"The Lord is here. Get dressed, you have ten minutes." The soldier grunted with annoyance, and they both stirred to reality. Yuna and Seymour both put their clothes on with a haste, as they heard how the sounds of numerous footsteps approached their cell. Yuna didn´t pay attention to it, though. Something else troubled her. She could feel something inside of her. She could feel how a strange feeling, alien to her, pounded in her heart and she didn´t know why. But she knew that the feeling wasn´t hers. "Seymour…my chest hurts." She whispered in wonder, and he glanced at him in worry. "I feel him in me." She whispered with strained voice, and Seymour paled. "What are you-" But Seymour never got the chance to finish.

The door opened, and Seymour gave Yuna´s hand a gentle squeeze of reassurance. They both entered the hallway, and there they were greeted with the sight of five figures.

Four Inquisitors stared at the two trough their masks, and the fifth figure, the tallest of them all, had a look of cold determination.

"Why, good morning." Serian said dryly, and eyed Yuna. "I suppose that you haven´t forgotten your duties, summoner?" He asked with cool courtesy, and Yuna nodded. "Ah. Splendid." He smiled but his smile dulled a little, when he saw Yuna´s expression. "I will not have anything to do with you." She muttered with weak voice.

"You will." He hissed, and took a step closer to her. "You will. And you ought to remember who has the control over your soul as well, my lady."

Yuna´s eyes widened from confusion from these news, and Serian eyed her with grim amusement. "Don´t tell me you didn´t know…were you unconscious the whole time? Didn´t he tell you?" Serian glanced at Seymour, who stared into the distance with his mouth in a thin, nervous line. Yuna was silent for a long, calculating moment, and shook her head.
"Oh. I really do pity you then. It really is so sad when your friends don´t tell you the truth, isn´t it?" Serian smirked with a cold voice, and glanced at Seymour who had a look of pure terror on his face.

"Please refrain your words, my lord. I trust my friends with my life, and they´ll do the same. There´s no secrets between us." Yuna said firmly, and Serian only lifted his brows in amazement. "Really? How…admirable. Well, we have more than enough time soon in private to discuss about this. But now: Come. The Unsent cannot wait for long." Serian said casually, like the thought didn´t disturb him at all.

So, with declining and scared thoughts, the young summoner and the Guado Maester began their journey back to the dead city of Guadosalam in the Lord´s wake.

Carriages were waiting for them in the outside, and they both climbed onto the same cabin. Soon after, a tall Inquisitor entered the cabin as well, shutting the door behind him.
Few minutes of uncomfortable silence was all what could be sensed in the small cabin before the carriages started to move. After a moment of taciturnity, the Inquisitor moved uncomfortably in his seat and tilted his hooded head to the side.

" I didn´t believe you got the guts to come back to the world of the living, Maester." The hooded and masked man coolly stated and continued to observe the blue haired mixture of ex-world destroying wannabe maniac and a sentimental romantic in front of him. "I didn´t either." The ex-Maester said dryly, and glanced at the sights from the window. "After all what you did to Yuna, I mean you even married her, and then you just decided to just sacrifice her in order to become the next Sin to destroy the world and kill everyone. I should give you a beating for what you did. Or…something." The man continued, and Seymour lifted his eyes to him and stared at the man with eyes wide open. "Excuse me?"

"Yea, you know brudda, I ain´t just gonna sit by and watch as you try to do the same thing again, ya hear?" The Inquisitor blurted with overheated feelings, and now it was Yuna´s turn to be really interested. "…Wakka? Is that you!" Yuna almost cried aloud but managed to stifle her surprise to lower decibels.

The man took his mask off, and a broad smile covered entirely his face.

"Well, Yunie, I thought you liked company." Wakka smirked, and his smile competed with Yuna´s broad grin. Seymour simply stared at the man with his mouth slightly open in complete silence, but neither of them noticed him.

"It´s so good to see you, Yuna. We have all been worried sick when we didn´t know where you were! We don´t have much time before we arrive to Guadosalam, so we have to keep the news short. Yuna- be very careful when you´re around that Lord and even careful when you are around that-" Wakka glared at the Guado with resentment, and Seymour calmly looked straight back at him with his cool, calculating eyes, although his mind was storming.

"Wakka, I have to tell you something, and I pray that you believe me! Seymour is…a good friend and he´s sorry for what he did. He sees his faults, and I don´t blame him…I sort of understand him." Yuna whispers, and now it´s Wakka´s turn to look absolutely confused. He forgets to shut his mouth for a moment, and when he has gotten hold of his body´s functions again, he looks graver than the Grim Reaper himself.
""You sort of understand him"! What is this? "He´s really sorry for what he did, and he never does it again. I promise."? How can you even think that you can trust him! The man´s a lying, double faced son of a-" Wakka rolls on, but is interrupted by Seymour´s cool, yet calm voice. " I prefer if you would speak directly to me, sir."

"I´m sorry, Maester Seymour, but I don´t think that I quite comprehend everything yet-"

"That would not be the first time…"

"You keep it quiet, brudda!"

…And on they went.

"Please, Wakka, you have to understand. Seymour is helping me to aid the people of Spira by stopping Serian, the Lord, from destroying every cross-breed from the world. Isn´t it worthy enough for us all to work together and forget our differences?" Yuna asked if frustration, and Wakka finally agreed to shut up. "Well…I guess it is…" He mumbled, and Yuna nodded.

"Fine, let´s be all buddy-buddy for now. But if that Seymour ever does something where you´ll suffer, Yuna, and I will-" Wakka grunted in deep suspicion, but Yuna cut in. "Wakka, NO."

"Okay, fine…Fine!" He snapped, but soon continued, with lighter voice. "Y´know, I´ll be watching you two the whole time. No one will try to hurt you, Yuna. But I suggest that you do one thing: when Serian has gotten what he wants and you have done what you had to, you´ll run away in to the woods when you are returning to the carriages." He whispers, and Seymour raised a brow. "You mean we flee? Isn´t that a little risky?" The Guado whispers in doubt, but Wakka cuts in. "Yea, of course it is. But I don´t think that staying around with those folks would be so much safer, ya?"

"Wakka is right. We must get away before Serian thinks up some plan to get us all killed." Yuna whispered hastily and turned to look at Seymour. "Seymour, how about you? Have you gained your powers back?" She asked with curiosity, and he nodded faintly. " They´ll come back gradually…I can do now only simple spells, firagas and such, but I doubt if I´ll ever get my aeon back…I´m still pretty useless to you, Yuna." He mumbled and sighed heavily.

For a man like what he was, power was everything, and it was extremely frustrating to stand without any magic to make him stronger.

"Seymour, don´t say that! You are never useless…not to me, not to anyone!" Yuna whispered softly, and Seymour smiled at her. "Yuna….do you still have your aeons?" He asked, and she shook her head. "No…I Sent them to Farplane after Sin was destroyed, but I do have my magic! Holy would be the right answer to our time of need…O-Oh!" She whispered and her eyes flew wide open.

"What´s wrong, Yuna?" Wakka cut in.

"I…I can´t…I can´t do magic! I don´t know how!" She whispered in horror, and Seymour leaned forward in confusion. "Yuna…what are you talking about?" He eyed her in worry, but Yuna only shook her head sadly. "I don´t know what he did to me, but I can´t do any magic at all…not anymore." She whispered with glossy eyes. Nobody had the chance to say anything, as the carriages came to a halt. Wakka put his mask back on hastily, and the three walked out.

"Can you see, summoner Yuna? Those creatures are soon to be gone, and you will help them to be saved! You should be happy that they are soon to be in better place." Serian´s anticipating voice rang loud in the empty city. The bodies of the Guado were lined up in the ground, and Yuna could feel their souls reaching still out to life from their dead bodies. She took a step forward to meet Serian´s cold gaze. However, the Lord stood with his back turned to them, observing the lines of the dead.

"What use do you have for me if you insist the dead to be Sent to Farplane? Surely any other summoner could do that. I don´t understand why you want them to be Sent to the Farplane, since you hated them so much." Yuna asked in sad voice, and Serian turned to meet her eyes with his own lilac ones wide from surprise.

"Oh, I do not recall that I have said anything about sending them to Farplane, my lady."

:

MEMENTO MORI: Memento for your mortality; No one lives forever.

A/N: Whew. A new chapter /finally/ finished. I´m so sorry to let you all wait…My inspiration had vanished into thin air, you see.

These chappies of mine are really getting way too long! I hope that you have enough strength to read them trough…anyway, 59 reviews already! Thank you all so much!

But who is going to be the 60th reviewer, hmm? Review my story, and I luff you all forever. ; )