Hey, sorry for the slow - to - update, guys... here ya go. The song is "Go rest high on that mountain" by... I'm not sure exactly, but I don't own it, although I changed a few words. This chapter was mainly inspired off the death of my best friend ever, which was thanksgiving. sigh Well... happy readings! (Btw, if you know who sings that song, leave it in a review, please!)

In the Summoner's Shadow

Part II Chapter XII

It was the second month Phen had been with Sonja and her squadron. It was the second month of a long passing period of Rufio hating the antennae-ed Al Bhed. It was the second month of Sonja becoming irate at the Ronso for the Al Bhed stealing her cheese and blaming it on Ark and Rufio, with the logic that, "They are felines and thus are attracted to milk, so why wouldn't they take your beloved cheddar?" It was the second month of a deep loathing manifesting itself in the bosom of Ark for blaming the loss of the cheese on him. It was, after all, not his fault! He only took the cheese on Tuesdays. It was Phen Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, Saturday, and Sunday!

Through all this, it was the first month of a deep love Sonja had developed for a small rectangular machina that had two slots in the top and a lever on the side. One would put bread inside for a few moments and it would come out nice and warm. Phen called it "Toaster." It made Sonja's favorite food. In fact, it was this food drowned in butter and lathered with a red, sugary syrup type of substance Rye referred to as "strawberry jelly" that she was eating when she received news that did not hit her stomach as well as the toast…

"Lieutenant!" Rufio shouted, running in. "You're not gonna believe it!" he called.

"I don't think you'll want to believe it!" Ark called, following his brother.

"Oh, dear…. Dare I ask?" she stood and greeted them.

"It's… Lord Braska…" Rufio panted, coming to a stop infront of Sonja and holding himself up by putting his hands on his knees.

"Whew! Actually, Rufe, wouldn't it be…ayah! High Summoner Lord Braska?"

"Yeah, well…" he shrugged. Sonja waited for the news, then blinked.

"Wait… what? S… say that again?"

The twins exchanged sad glances, then Ark hugged her tightly.

"Your father…" he broke the hug and looked her in the eye, "… he defeated Sin just a few moments ago… an hour at the most… now, listen Lieutenant, I don't want you going off and doi…"

Sonja stared forward at Ark. Her eyes locked onto the place where no horn grew above his brow and her mind fell away into the deeper parts of her conscience. His voice drifted off into nothing but incomprehensible murmuring.

Braska… lost to her forever, she thought. He was dead. She'd never get to see him again… ever… never… and Auron was his guardian… he would be lost too… and… Yuna? What of her? Braska surely would not have left on a Pilgrimage if Yuna were still alive. He would only do it if he did not have anyone else to take care of… right? Of course…

"… and we're here for you!" she finally realized that Ark was still speaking. She lowered her gaze from his, then pushed out of his strong Ronso hold and ran from the room.

"Lieutenant! Wait!" he called, but she was already too far gone. She ran past everyone she'd ever trained, talked to, and seen in the guild, and continued to run until she came to the surface of the Spirian soil. In disbelief at what the boys told her, Sonja frantically looked around until she found someone. She approached them.

"Excuse me…" she tugged on a man's coat sleeve, breaking him from his conversation with another man and a woman. "…Is it true that Lord Braska defeated Sin?"

"Hrph… I hate kids…" he complained and turned away from her. She glared.

"You're rude!" she told him. The woman nodded.

"I agree!" she then turned to Sonja. "Yes, Lord Braska did win against Sin!"

"At least for a little while. We'll never be rid of that creature…" the first man scoffed.

"Don't say that infront of children!" The other man smacked him. Sonja stared down at her feet in defeat and walked away, nodding her thanks. She kicked at a random stone on the ground, then with a burst of energy, ran strait for the shore of Kilika, where she stared out towards the water, scanning the horizon for any sign of the giant monstrosity.

"They've got to be lying…," she told herself, lying aloud to no one.

"They're all lying! All of them! Every last one! I know you're out there you slimy bag of crap! Show yourself, Sin! I dare you! NOW!" she screamed at the top of her lungs, a flock of sand pipers squeaking their little calls and flying off at the sudden roar of desperation. She watched them fly off. Her gaze stopped at the setting sun, staring strait into it. "Daddy…" she choked on her tears.

"I can't believe you left me… you ... you stupid lesbian midget left-handed albino ninja!" she screamed into the air. A wave of salty ocean water hit the sand bar where she stood. The spray moistened her breeze whipped ebony locks. She sighed and sat down, still staring off into the sunset.

The sea slowly became more and more active, having more waves and splashes. So Sin was gone; his presence made the ebb and flow of the ocean abnormal, considering he had a tendency to draw the water to him. Now there was no gravitational force from the large manifestation of the countless iniquities of the world… or, at least that is what Braska had taught her and her sister under the influence of the Yevonite teachings.

She thought back a while, remembering one time when he brought the girls with him during one of his missions. Auron, the usual babysitter, was busy with a meeting the warrior monks were holding, his "monkie business," as Sonja once dubbed it.

Braska brought the girls with him to a meeting of all the Yevonite missionaries that were supposed to be spreading the teachings to those who did not believe. That's where Sonja had the joy of running around, shaking hands with different priests and preachers. She had fun with it. Her favorite part was meeting Maester Jyscal. She spent the next week and a half gloating over his comment, "Such a beautiful young woman, and so fine tuned in her manners. Braska, you have done a wonderful job raising this child…"
She loved getting the privilege of shaking his hand and impressing him with the perfection of her prayer bow. She remembered over hearing the Maester speaking to her father about something pertaining to Jyscal not condoning Braska for wedding and bedding an Al-Bhed. She remembered him finishing with a simple, "half-breeds run amongst the faithful,"

She did not know what he meant by it then… she still did not know, and had long gone past the point of caring. Besides, she did not know many things

There were many things she didn't know. Most, she probably didn't want to know, and almost everything she KNEW she didn't want to know. One thing she did want to know, though, was how something so evil could come from something so good? There was no way she was related to Braska.

He was kind; she was not. He helped without being asked, while she enjoyed sitting back and laughing at the burdened. His eyes were a bright lovely and soft blue while hers were a determined and powerful gold like none else on the face of Spira. His soul was concreted to the teachings of Yevon with a solidity that could never be wavered or broken from his beliefs. She, on the other hand… she had recently began to doubt what her father taught her about the religion, and often gave up on things with no reason for it. She jokingly though she must have been adopted…

"Daddy… I'm… sorry…" Sonja fell to her knees and bowed her head, her eyes tearing up and threatening to break the barriers of her eyelids and moisten her cheeks. Not that it would matter. She was alone, and her face was wet enough from the wild spray of the sea against her.

"I'm so sorry!" she repeated before clenching her fists and throwing her head back while shouting into the sky- "I'M SO SORRY!"

Sonja's voice was choked on tears and coughs of sadness. She began to blubber when she spoke, her mouth positioned in an awkward position that made it hard to speak fluently.

"I'm sorry, daddy! I could have saved you! Lucientio would have died instead, and you would still be here for me! Daddy! Daddy, I'm sorry! Forgive me! Please! PLEASE!"

A single passerby stopped and watched her screaming out in fury and hatred for herself, and longing and love for her dearly departed. He stood and watched her crying for a short while, shaking his head pitifully. Sonja, however, did not notice the Ronso behind her. She did not notice his short stature or broken horn, either. She did not notice the slightly taller, horned one that crept up behind her and wrapped his furry arms about her.

"Sonja…" he sighed and kissed her head. Rufio lifted her against his chest and hugged her tightly. "…come on in…"

She pushed him away. "Go away!" she shouted when he lifted her from the ground. He set her down.
"You'll get sick out here. It's getting cold," he pointed out, only to be attacked by her sharp daggers.

"I SAID LEAVE ME ALONE!" She screamed, causing the towns people all the way back in town to turn towards the noise.

"Sonja! Shut up! Just come on! Please? You can come back in the morning. It's dark now; you've been out here for hours!" He pleaded.

"I am NOT leaving Daddy out there!" she yelled.

"What are you talking about?" he asked, tilting his head to the side. "He's dead already! There's nothing you can do about it!"

"Shut up, Rufio! You have no proof whether he lives or not! Just go away and leave me alone! I'm. Not. Leaving!"

Rufio stared at her, a deep growl growing in the back of his throat. He did not know where this argument had come from, and neither did she. She especially did not know the conversation between her father and his guardian was almost exactly like the one she just had.

"Braska, come inside. It's cold out. You'll catch a fever…" Auron's sympathetic, yet demanding voice whispered in the night air.

"I'm not leaving my baby out there all alone in the freezing weather, half dead!" He shook the future guardian's hand off and continued walking around, calling out for the young lass lost just hours earlier.

"Braska, don't be stupi-"

"I said I'm not going anywhere with out her, Auron! If you're so worried about health, why don't YOU go inside?"

Auron was startled. He had never heard his friend speak in this tone of voice before.

"You realize she's most likely already dead, with out a thing for you to do for her…"

"Leave me alone…" was Braska's feeble plea, his heart apparently broken in more than one direction.

"I want to go look for her, too, but we have to wait for morning. If we're too sick from fever to even get out of bed, how are we going to help her out of the forest? That's assuming she's alive, now…"

"Auron… if you cared for her… even in the slightest bit… even so much as to recognize her existence… you'd come help me look…"Braska's gentle, whispered command sent shivers of … fear… down Auron's spine. The young man sighed and shook his head, staring at his older friend.

"I'm… sorry, Braska… I loved her more than anything, and you know it… but… it's just impossible for her to even be lying out there with a heart beat, if that creature was as powerful as you say it was… please… come inside. We'll go look for her body tomorrow, and have the first Summoner through this way give her a proper sending…"

"NO! I will not accept that, Auron! You and your pessimistic mind may think that she is gone already, but she is not! I cannot accept it! I just… can't…"

Sonja fell to her knees, shaking her head.

"I just can't accept it, Rufio…"

"I know you can't, Nightwish… but you must come inside… please?" he asked, one last time.

"… No…" she shook her head and stared into the windy sea, the spray of the water splashing her face.

"Alright…" he sighed and wrapped his furry and feathery cape around her shoulders. " Come in if you get cold, promise?" He walked away after she didn't answer him, a sigh in his furry lips.

After several minutes of kneeling there on the ground, her eyes watery with tears and her cheeks almost frosting from the sea water and the cold air, she stood onto her bare, stiff and dead feet, crossing the cliff to come to rest on the sands of the beach, the natural waves lapping up to her ankles, warming them for split seconds before the cold night air kissed its freeze upon them again. The tide ebbed and flowed as if happy to be free from Sin's massive gravitational force, its being having more power over the waters than the moon itself.

"The whole world rejoices when Sin is gone," she knelt down and pressed a hand to the soft sand, it curling around her fingers and palm like so many ants over a honeyed biscuit. The wind moaned around the cliffs and trees, singing what Sonja recognized as the first three notes of the all too famous Hymn.

"The whole world comes alive and rejoices at the defeat of that terrible monster… the whole world except one lonely little lost child, left by herself in the night to mourn her beloved, lost twice father and fallen sister… she alone is there to cry and shed tears over a single death for which the rest of existence cries in joy… you didn't think about that solitary girl, did you, Daddy?"

The wind became quiet, as if reluctant to make a noise in fear that she would think it was answering her, and banish it from her forever.

"You didn't think about me, Daddy…" she knelt in the sand and began to write in the sand, her fingers curling and curving gently and easily with every stroke she made. Every line spoke of his hardships in life, the disowning of him by his family when he took the hand of her mother in sacred matrimony… the foul words shouted at him as he took that drunkard guardian as his protector… the dirty looks he endured as they were shot at Yuna… all of this on top of losing his only beloved to the terrible Sin. The same terrible Sin he also died at the hands of.

I know your life on Earth was troubled,

Only you could know the pain.

You weren't afraid to face the devil.

You're no stranger to the rain…

No, Braska was not afraid of Sin. He was not afraid of anything! At least, she never saw him afraid of anything… except for the one time when Sonja and Yuna were making him a surprise Breakfast-in-bed and Yuna was in charge of getting down the knives from the top shelf out of their reach so Sonja, the more agile in the hands, could cut little hearts and bears out of the toast. Braska walked in on them, scaring Yuna out of her balance. She fell, the knives after her, though they missed her. They did hit Sonja, though- one in the hand that was guarding her face, one in the elbow, and one in the ankle. Braska was scared then. Scared that Yuna had cracked her skull open from that fall, although she had no more than a twisted wrist and broken arm, and scared that Sonja was bleeding too quickly for a mortal, though the young girl healed within a few days. That's what Braska was ever scared of… the safety of his little babies. He was not scared of Sin, though. He faced it strait in the eyes, a fiery determination in him stronger than that of even that creature despised by Spira. He had won. Fear had no power over a man so great.

Go rest high on that mountain.

Dad, your work on Earth is done.

Go to Heaven a'shoutin'

Love for the Father and the Son

Once written that verse, she paused and wiped her eyes clear of the tears, extra salty from the sea mist splashing on her face. She stood, staring out into the ocean, longing to see a boat come sailing in, the sails unfurled in the wind, catching every gust that it could… and… to see on the bow of that boat… a man, gentle blue eyes with a soft smile hardened by years of discord and hate… a man, one she'd run to screaming out loving names of affection while he would kneel before her, open arms, ready to receive her gift of tenderness and love, the only gift she could ever give him worthy enough of a father's devotion- one he didn't have to emit, but did anyway.

He was gone now, though… she knew it… and as she knew it, a few words came to her mouth and spoke without her consent, her soft voice singing, helped along by the wind:

Oh, how I cried the day you left me

I wanted to see your grave to grieve.

I wish I could see our family's faces

When they hear your sweet voice sing.

She sounded a bit shaky to herself, maybe from the shivering of the cold or the emptiness of her stomach, or even the loneliness of her standing barefoot, nothing but a cape in the dark moonless night, the first six hours of her father's Calm.

She felt the wind pick up so strong as to force her hung head upwards and face the sky, the stars dancing amongst themselves as the anti-day's only light. Even the stars were happy; they giggled and twinkled with laughter in the atmosphere, their gentle sparkling radiating the joy of the universe. The whole world was rejoicing now that Sin was gone. Sonja again felt her voice lifted up to those stars, as if encouraged to sing by some outside force, one that she felt whole with.

Go rest high on that mountain,

Dad, your work on Earth is done.

Go to Heaven a shouting,

Love for the Father and the Son.

The young girl fell to her knees again, her eyes closed against the bitterness of the night. Her thoughts were fully upon her father and his death. She prayed silently to herself for his safe, gentle, and easy passage into the Far Plane… not that she would ever go see him. That place frightened her. Braska had taken her and Yuna there once to see their mother, but Sonja, for the life of her, would not enter that sacred realm.

"Go, Father, and find Mother and Yuna… keep them safe… I'm coming, too…"

With that, she laid in the cold sand and closed her eyes, clutching the cape around her shoulders for a final comfort, feeling as if she were being hugged as darkness and silence surrounded her forcefully enough to hurt her sides, yet there was a tenderness about it, a tenderness of caring and love and sadness, yet anger at her for choosing to do what she just implied. Maybe it was the cold playing on her lungs. Maybe finally they would freeze and she would…