Chapter 7: Home

I've laid my memories and dreams upon those wings…

I landed gently at the vacant and dismal entrance to Madain Sari, stumbling a little on some rubble. The world was so grey and foreboding. What had happened? Where was everyone? The moogles should have been there. I wanted to look around, but they were waiting on me. Their haunting reprise filled the air and I moved faster, breaking into a run. I could hear them –they were close. I didn't have to look to know where I was going. My feet knew the way. My feet had always known the way to that place so important and special to me that it filled me with love at the sight of it.

I slowed down before the Eidolon Wall, breathing heavily. The Wall towered in my sight, the familiar paintings watching Madain Sari protectively, as always.

Come to us, don't leave us again, they called, their haunting voices filling the world with that song I knew so well. They seemed to encompass everything around me. In a moment, they would fill me too. I didn't mind though. It wouldn't hurt; they'd make the pain go away. Nothing could be worse than the void I felt within me, the void where my eidolons should have been.

"Eiko!" I turned. A dim shape was trotting towards me through the gray fog that seemed to be settling around the village. Was that Zidane?

I opened my mouth to call his name, mostly sure that it was him. He was alright it seemed.

Leave them now and see what tomorrow brings…

I turned back to the Wall. Leave? Leave. Walking purposely towards the Eidolon Wall, I laid my hand on its pitted surface. A cold and chilling feeling ran down my arm, flowing over me and I could feel myself being absolved. My responsibility, my obligation…to my people, to my friends, to myself –I was being released from everything. No longer did I have to shoulder the burden. I sighed. This was…a good thing, right?

"Eiko!" that voice shouted again, closer this time. Zidane?

Before I could turn around, the scenery flickered and changed, everything except the Eidolon Wall becoming a familiar coliseum surrounded by clouds of grey. Come…Enter the zero world that you desire…

"No! She's going to live!"

The song that had called me there ascended into a wail, filling my hearing with their haunting voices. I trembled. I was all alone, a summoner with nothing, but a void. Should I stay? Or should I go?

If I stayed, what would happen? Could I really live…the way I was? I'd never experienced life without eidolons before…

Yet if I went, I wouldn't have to bear the pain anymore. Which was the best choice?

I didn't know, I didn't know.

Come…

"Stay!"

"MADEEN!" I screamed, torn between life and death and afraid to make a choice. I just wanted my eidolons.

A hand grabbed my arm, pulling me to a warm body. Golden light bathed the world, beating back the clouds of grey. I began to sob. I tried to stifle the tears a few times, but that just made me cry worse. What I was crying for I've never been exactly sure. For myself? For my eidolons?

Enter the zero world… Come… Necron commanded.

Zidane's grip on me tightened.

I didn't have to ask to know that letting me go was something he would not do.

Phoenix… I called hesitantly.

No one answered, but I didn't care. As long as…they were there…it didn't matter whether or not I could feel them.

The world grew crimson with flames; fire dancing all around us, but not daring to touch. A magnificent bird with plumage that outshined the brightest jewels swooped overhead, fanning the flames towards Necron.

And then the world faded back into the village that I knew, the one called Madain Sari. We left Necron behind and defeated once more that day, but it wasn't lying when it said it was eternal. Nonetheless, I will never worry about facing it once more on the day I die when such is mine and every living creature's destiny.

"Eiko, are you alright?" Zidane asked, looking down at me, for I was still shorter than him. I smiled up at him. "Of course I'm fine. Have you ever known me not to be fine," I said lightly, wiping my wet face on my sleeve. "Oh, I got your shirt wet… Well that's what you get for holding me so tight!"

Zidane grinned and brushed a speck of dirt off my face. I grinned back. Even if he sees me as a younger sibling… I… Can handle it. Never again will I let my love for him torment me so. I can hold it to me and revel in it on my own. He doesn't have to know and he doesn't have to return my feelings. I can live with a one-sided love.

"Let's go home," he said to me and I had to work hard to hold back the tears. He had come for me. Come to bring me home. That was all that mattered.

Of course you're wondering what happened with my eidolons and I, right? Maybe you thought they died the day they helped me save Zidane. Or maybe you thought I had gone crazy and convinced myself they were no longer there. The truth is, they're there, where they've always been, inside of me. That day though…when we performed that spell together… I lost something important to me… I can no longer feel my eidolons, nor communicate with them. That day, when we saved Zidane, the senses I had as a summoner, the ones that let me feel, talk and hear eidolons… They became dead. Never again will I feel an eidolon or hear it's voice and never again will they hear mine.

At times it feels like being mute and deaf, just as it did when Phoenix passed by overhead to drive Necron away. All I could do was look and watch. Later Zidane asked me what Phoenix had been calling to me as he flew above us, but I could not say for I had not heard him. Just to see him and know that he, that all of them, are still there though, that was and is enough for me. Just the knowledge that I am not alone is all I need.

The most important thing every good summoner should remember is that you are never alone. Your eidolons are always there inside of you, willing to help you through life, just as a summoner is always there for their eidolons…

The End