Those Who Come Closest
Song of Wings
Rocks don't sing. And yet, from the confines of this small room in this makeshift temple, I can hear the notes as clearly as I used to be able to hear my brother strum on his guitar. That guitar is smashed to bits now, splinters lost among the other shards of wood and metal scattered along the shorelines of Besaid. If one were to be cruel, one would also point out that my brother is like his guitar, smashed to bits and lost among the countless bodies on the shoreline.
Sin has taken our world from us. Any of the epithets, The Punishment, Terror of the Sea, Scourge of Spira, never come close to revealing the truth about Sin. He is our God, and in our fear of him, we'll worship him. I hate it as much anyone else, maybe even a little more, but I'll sacrifice myself to him if it will keep him quiet. The lady Summoner from Zanarkand doesn't say it in so many words, but that's what is. One person from each of the major towns will step forward and become an Aeon who will bless summoners with the power to defeat Sin.
Wounded from the loss of family, friends, and my own future, I stepped forward. I'm just a teenager, I told myself, and I didn't question this impulse I had to fight in the only way I could. I would sacrifice myself become the Besaid Aeon, and for as long as it took, I would fight along with the summoners.
Our temple is an old theater, and while it's still not temple-like enough to suit the Lady Yunalesca, the most important chamber, that of the near-born Fayth is ready. All that needs to be done before she can begin her prayers is the carving of the giant stone into the statue the Fayth will bind itself to.
That's my job, to tame this singing rock into it's final form, and then somehow bind myself into that Fayth. Worse, I'm to do this with nothing but my bare hands and my thoughts.
Yunalesca's words echo in my head as I finally manage to keep one shaky hand on the trembling stone. "Believe," she said, "Have faith, and pour everything you are, and everything you want to be into the stone. And then, you shall shape it, and yourself, into that which will save Spira."
Everything I am isn't very much. Not when I'm just a silly little girl who grew into a silly adolescent and who would have remained silly until the day I died, if not for the last few months of losing everything. The costal village my family lived in was the first to be lost. The ruins of our apartment stand on the beach, but we couldn't live there anymore. With the rest of the newly homeless, we walked along the cliffs to the most central of the villages. Nestled among jungles, bluffs, and lakes, we thought ourselves safe. Without a permanent home, we could at least be grateful that our family remained together and alive.
Sin rampaged Besaid, apparently discontent until the entire place fell to the ground. In the second rampage a month later, my parents had been lost. Thinking to defend the village, both of them rushed out with spears in hand and charge at Sin head on along with dozens of other islanders, all longing for someway to stop Sin and die trying. Such a beast always preferred death, and in the end, that final coup ended with a whimper, or more appropriately, a scream, instead of a bang.
We carried on still, believing that as long as there was still someone to call family at our side we could overcome anything. My brother with his guitar, and I with my weavings labored away at our tasks until our fingers wore down and the blisters betrayed our longing for a futile escape from our grief. Our life was automatic, we never broke down, never ended, but we never moved on. How could we?
We continued in our daze, or at least I did. My brother, something must have dissatisfied him because just over a week ago, he walked to the sea, strumming along as if he were to tame Sin with through a simple serenade. How stupid he was, and yet I understood why he did it. He had never been a fighter, but it's Sin's nature to make people want to fight it. And so, in the only way he knew how, he stepped forward and fought on the shores of Besaid isle with no armor but the clothes on his back and no weapon but his music. It was totally moronic of him, but it was unconventional, and no army that we threw at the beast could tame it, so maybe one solitary young man could.
I wish so much that the unconventional worked that day. It didn't. Sin proved to be as imperious to songs as he was to swords. Somehow, though, I believe my brother knew how futile his quest was before he even set out. Music is in the soul, he told me many times when we were children, Anything with ears can hear the notes, but only the soul hears music. We didn't even know if Sin had ears in that big armored body of his and we already knew that he didn't have a soul. Nothing that relentless in destruction could have something that we would recognize as a soul. Nothing. He gave up, that's all I can think. He didn't sing to Sin to defeat it, he sang to Sin to raise his white flag.
So, I'd lost it all. Working couldn't contain my despair anymore although I tried. I gathered my troubles like thread and began weaving them into a semblance of order and beauty, only to have them break apart at my loom. The threads I used in real life broke with the slightest provocation and the patterns that came so easily to my carefree fingers unraveled as soon as I placed them. I planned on secluding myself, wondering how I would continue motion in a world that stopped spinning.
Only my last outing before I shut myself in for grieving changed my plans. The great summoner Yunalesca came from the north, promising to give us safety from Sin, and safety for our future generations, however long future generations lasted. But she also asked for a volunteer. The Fayth of old Zanarkand had shattered with the city, and so the Aeon's had to be born anew.
I'm very much like my brother: wanting so hard to just surrender, but refusing to do so directly. This opportunity to become a Fayth gave me a way to give up without giving in. I had to take it. Unlike the rest of the volunteers, who would have liked the honor that came with being a Fayth, who would have liked to be the one to protect our new village for generations, I had to have it. No question. No exaggeration. No way I could have died in peace if I did not go this way.
The others raised their hands in the crowd. I separated myself and stepped forward. Whatever someone tried to draw attention, I tried harder until no one could deny my plea, not even someone as exalted as Yunalesca. My knees were sore from begging, and my throat sore from my appeals, but by the following midnight, I had my job, as soon as we could find a chamber and a rock.
I entered the temple at dawn, two weeks from the day that Yunalesca first told us of her solution. The normally lazy, late-rising islanders lined the path that led from my hut to the temple, and Yunalesca, her husband who kept watch over her but stayed in the background, and the man who had been charged with the care of my temple walked up the hill with me.
We're a superstitious lot, and as such, people sought to make offering towards me: finely woven robes, pearl jewelry, relative splendor for a relatively poor island. I wouldn't need them where I was going, I wanted to tell them. But I couldn't, not when refusing their generosity would have happened in the same breath as saying my goodbyes.
So I walked up, splendidly garbed but barefoot to the entrance of the temple, the entire population of our village right behind me. I thought of making a speech, but my mouth was dry and I doubted that anything more profound that I croak would escape my lips. Fortunately, the tap of Yunalesca's fingers on my shoulders indicated that lofty attempts at oration were not part of our schedule. So I just waved goodbye to everyone, the friends and acquaintances whom I now willingly sacrificed myself for. They all waved back, solemn, perhaps even sad as I took my final steps towards the temple.
Before I started crying in front of the entire isle, I ducked inside, where only the Lady Yunalesca and the man who had been chosen for the role of Temple Summoner bowed to me in the new fashion, arms held across our bodies, bottom palm facing up and top palm facing down. Even though I wasn't expected to return it, I did, despite my loathing for this stiff-lined prayer gesture. The temple summoner was an old prominent man, and while I would be something different soon, at the moment, I was nothing but a teenage girl, who never had anything to her name. For this man to bow to me went against what I had learned as a child: respect your elders.
Yunalesca stepped between us and grabbed my arm. "It's time to go, child." Relieved to have all the protocol end, I let her lead me from the front room and closer to the heart of the temple, my new home.
She looked at me sometimes, sidelongly curious about something and yet uncertain to ask. Maybe she wanted to know if I was afraid of this fate that I had chosen for myself now that it was only a matter of minutes when I would cease to live and instead merely be. If she asked, I wouldn't tell the truth, that maybe I was a bit scared of living in a hunk of rock for the rest of my days. I wouldn't live, but I would never die either, no matter how many battles I ended up fighting and how many injuries I obtained. I wondered how much I would hurt, and I wonder if I could take joy in something, maybe defeating Sin.
The next room was a maze of stone and glyphs with spheres that sang to me. The glyphs spoke of the new rituals. They spoke of new traditions and about the Fayth who would give their lives to become Sin and defeat the Aeons. They also spoke of other Fayth, and of dreams that would live on after the war. Yunalesca, lost in concentration, seemed to write these glyphs even as she solved the puzzle that protected my chamber.
Finally, we exited the trial and rode the newly built lift to the room where I would give into my destiny. At the center of the room was a small pit with the singing rock. I thought it would be a fine sculptors stone, formal and worthy of my fate. In actuality, it was just a hunk of cheap sandstone, and the grains eroded away even as a placed my hand on it.
With a wise smile, Yunalesca placed her hand on my shoulders and gave me her instructions:
"Believe," she said, "Have faith, and pour everything you are, and everything you want to be into the stone. And then, you shall shape it, and yourself, into that which will save Spira."
What I am is a pitiful little girl who couldn't do anything but give up?
What I want to be is a bird. I want to fly over all this strife and trouble and carry the people of our world with me. I've watched seagulls circle our skies and lead our fishermen home. I've heard birds sing so prettily that they lulled crying babies to sleep.
Maybe I'll be weak as a bird, as delicate as a formed wing, but I don't want to be strong. Strength means pain, and anyway, my brother had the right idea. Pain means that Sin wins; all we have on our side is love and beauty and kindness. I want enough power to protect those in my care. When the next one who calls on me tries something silly and stupid, I want to be able to keep them alive.
I poured this desire into the stone that flaked away beneath my touch and gradually it bound my hand to the statue until I couldn't pull back. From the corner of my eyes I could see wings, glorious wings growing from me, even as the rest of me petrified. Gradually, my body stiffened, and the last thing I did before I completely became my statue was close my heavy-growing eyelids.
I sleep now. And when I wake, I shall be known as Valefor.
Author's notes: This is just a little side project I'm working on while my beta is a bit busy. As such, it's definitely not as good as my usual. Anyway, this was just a project I've been wanting to work on for a while. Because I find the concept of the Fayth to be fascinating....
Well, perhaps I'm a looney, but it does mean passionate Ifrit/Shiva love. Yeah, you know you want it.
And I fegging hate FFN's formatting policy.
Song of Wings
Rocks don't sing. And yet, from the confines of this small room in this makeshift temple, I can hear the notes as clearly as I used to be able to hear my brother strum on his guitar. That guitar is smashed to bits now, splinters lost among the other shards of wood and metal scattered along the shorelines of Besaid. If one were to be cruel, one would also point out that my brother is like his guitar, smashed to bits and lost among the countless bodies on the shoreline.
Sin has taken our world from us. Any of the epithets, The Punishment, Terror of the Sea, Scourge of Spira, never come close to revealing the truth about Sin. He is our God, and in our fear of him, we'll worship him. I hate it as much anyone else, maybe even a little more, but I'll sacrifice myself to him if it will keep him quiet. The lady Summoner from Zanarkand doesn't say it in so many words, but that's what is. One person from each of the major towns will step forward and become an Aeon who will bless summoners with the power to defeat Sin.
Wounded from the loss of family, friends, and my own future, I stepped forward. I'm just a teenager, I told myself, and I didn't question this impulse I had to fight in the only way I could. I would sacrifice myself become the Besaid Aeon, and for as long as it took, I would fight along with the summoners.
Our temple is an old theater, and while it's still not temple-like enough to suit the Lady Yunalesca, the most important chamber, that of the near-born Fayth is ready. All that needs to be done before she can begin her prayers is the carving of the giant stone into the statue the Fayth will bind itself to.
That's my job, to tame this singing rock into it's final form, and then somehow bind myself into that Fayth. Worse, I'm to do this with nothing but my bare hands and my thoughts.
Yunalesca's words echo in my head as I finally manage to keep one shaky hand on the trembling stone. "Believe," she said, "Have faith, and pour everything you are, and everything you want to be into the stone. And then, you shall shape it, and yourself, into that which will save Spira."
Everything I am isn't very much. Not when I'm just a silly little girl who grew into a silly adolescent and who would have remained silly until the day I died, if not for the last few months of losing everything. The costal village my family lived in was the first to be lost. The ruins of our apartment stand on the beach, but we couldn't live there anymore. With the rest of the newly homeless, we walked along the cliffs to the most central of the villages. Nestled among jungles, bluffs, and lakes, we thought ourselves safe. Without a permanent home, we could at least be grateful that our family remained together and alive.
Sin rampaged Besaid, apparently discontent until the entire place fell to the ground. In the second rampage a month later, my parents had been lost. Thinking to defend the village, both of them rushed out with spears in hand and charge at Sin head on along with dozens of other islanders, all longing for someway to stop Sin and die trying. Such a beast always preferred death, and in the end, that final coup ended with a whimper, or more appropriately, a scream, instead of a bang.
We carried on still, believing that as long as there was still someone to call family at our side we could overcome anything. My brother with his guitar, and I with my weavings labored away at our tasks until our fingers wore down and the blisters betrayed our longing for a futile escape from our grief. Our life was automatic, we never broke down, never ended, but we never moved on. How could we?
We continued in our daze, or at least I did. My brother, something must have dissatisfied him because just over a week ago, he walked to the sea, strumming along as if he were to tame Sin with through a simple serenade. How stupid he was, and yet I understood why he did it. He had never been a fighter, but it's Sin's nature to make people want to fight it. And so, in the only way he knew how, he stepped forward and fought on the shores of Besaid isle with no armor but the clothes on his back and no weapon but his music. It was totally moronic of him, but it was unconventional, and no army that we threw at the beast could tame it, so maybe one solitary young man could.
I wish so much that the unconventional worked that day. It didn't. Sin proved to be as imperious to songs as he was to swords. Somehow, though, I believe my brother knew how futile his quest was before he even set out. Music is in the soul, he told me many times when we were children, Anything with ears can hear the notes, but only the soul hears music. We didn't even know if Sin had ears in that big armored body of his and we already knew that he didn't have a soul. Nothing that relentless in destruction could have something that we would recognize as a soul. Nothing. He gave up, that's all I can think. He didn't sing to Sin to defeat it, he sang to Sin to raise his white flag.
So, I'd lost it all. Working couldn't contain my despair anymore although I tried. I gathered my troubles like thread and began weaving them into a semblance of order and beauty, only to have them break apart at my loom. The threads I used in real life broke with the slightest provocation and the patterns that came so easily to my carefree fingers unraveled as soon as I placed them. I planned on secluding myself, wondering how I would continue motion in a world that stopped spinning.
Only my last outing before I shut myself in for grieving changed my plans. The great summoner Yunalesca came from the north, promising to give us safety from Sin, and safety for our future generations, however long future generations lasted. But she also asked for a volunteer. The Fayth of old Zanarkand had shattered with the city, and so the Aeon's had to be born anew.
I'm very much like my brother: wanting so hard to just surrender, but refusing to do so directly. This opportunity to become a Fayth gave me a way to give up without giving in. I had to take it. Unlike the rest of the volunteers, who would have liked the honor that came with being a Fayth, who would have liked to be the one to protect our new village for generations, I had to have it. No question. No exaggeration. No way I could have died in peace if I did not go this way.
The others raised their hands in the crowd. I separated myself and stepped forward. Whatever someone tried to draw attention, I tried harder until no one could deny my plea, not even someone as exalted as Yunalesca. My knees were sore from begging, and my throat sore from my appeals, but by the following midnight, I had my job, as soon as we could find a chamber and a rock.
I entered the temple at dawn, two weeks from the day that Yunalesca first told us of her solution. The normally lazy, late-rising islanders lined the path that led from my hut to the temple, and Yunalesca, her husband who kept watch over her but stayed in the background, and the man who had been charged with the care of my temple walked up the hill with me.
We're a superstitious lot, and as such, people sought to make offering towards me: finely woven robes, pearl jewelry, relative splendor for a relatively poor island. I wouldn't need them where I was going, I wanted to tell them. But I couldn't, not when refusing their generosity would have happened in the same breath as saying my goodbyes.
So I walked up, splendidly garbed but barefoot to the entrance of the temple, the entire population of our village right behind me. I thought of making a speech, but my mouth was dry and I doubted that anything more profound that I croak would escape my lips. Fortunately, the tap of Yunalesca's fingers on my shoulders indicated that lofty attempts at oration were not part of our schedule. So I just waved goodbye to everyone, the friends and acquaintances whom I now willingly sacrificed myself for. They all waved back, solemn, perhaps even sad as I took my final steps towards the temple.
Before I started crying in front of the entire isle, I ducked inside, where only the Lady Yunalesca and the man who had been chosen for the role of Temple Summoner bowed to me in the new fashion, arms held across our bodies, bottom palm facing up and top palm facing down. Even though I wasn't expected to return it, I did, despite my loathing for this stiff-lined prayer gesture. The temple summoner was an old prominent man, and while I would be something different soon, at the moment, I was nothing but a teenage girl, who never had anything to her name. For this man to bow to me went against what I had learned as a child: respect your elders.
Yunalesca stepped between us and grabbed my arm. "It's time to go, child." Relieved to have all the protocol end, I let her lead me from the front room and closer to the heart of the temple, my new home.
She looked at me sometimes, sidelongly curious about something and yet uncertain to ask. Maybe she wanted to know if I was afraid of this fate that I had chosen for myself now that it was only a matter of minutes when I would cease to live and instead merely be. If she asked, I wouldn't tell the truth, that maybe I was a bit scared of living in a hunk of rock for the rest of my days. I wouldn't live, but I would never die either, no matter how many battles I ended up fighting and how many injuries I obtained. I wondered how much I would hurt, and I wonder if I could take joy in something, maybe defeating Sin.
The next room was a maze of stone and glyphs with spheres that sang to me. The glyphs spoke of the new rituals. They spoke of new traditions and about the Fayth who would give their lives to become Sin and defeat the Aeons. They also spoke of other Fayth, and of dreams that would live on after the war. Yunalesca, lost in concentration, seemed to write these glyphs even as she solved the puzzle that protected my chamber.
Finally, we exited the trial and rode the newly built lift to the room where I would give into my destiny. At the center of the room was a small pit with the singing rock. I thought it would be a fine sculptors stone, formal and worthy of my fate. In actuality, it was just a hunk of cheap sandstone, and the grains eroded away even as a placed my hand on it.
With a wise smile, Yunalesca placed her hand on my shoulders and gave me her instructions:
"Believe," she said, "Have faith, and pour everything you are, and everything you want to be into the stone. And then, you shall shape it, and yourself, into that which will save Spira."
What I am is a pitiful little girl who couldn't do anything but give up?
What I want to be is a bird. I want to fly over all this strife and trouble and carry the people of our world with me. I've watched seagulls circle our skies and lead our fishermen home. I've heard birds sing so prettily that they lulled crying babies to sleep.
Maybe I'll be weak as a bird, as delicate as a formed wing, but I don't want to be strong. Strength means pain, and anyway, my brother had the right idea. Pain means that Sin wins; all we have on our side is love and beauty and kindness. I want enough power to protect those in my care. When the next one who calls on me tries something silly and stupid, I want to be able to keep them alive.
I poured this desire into the stone that flaked away beneath my touch and gradually it bound my hand to the statue until I couldn't pull back. From the corner of my eyes I could see wings, glorious wings growing from me, even as the rest of me petrified. Gradually, my body stiffened, and the last thing I did before I completely became my statue was close my heavy-growing eyelids.
I sleep now. And when I wake, I shall be known as Valefor.
Author's notes: This is just a little side project I'm working on while my beta is a bit busy. As such, it's definitely not as good as my usual. Anyway, this was just a project I've been wanting to work on for a while. Because I find the concept of the Fayth to be fascinating....
Well, perhaps I'm a looney, but it does mean passionate Ifrit/Shiva love. Yeah, you know you want it.
And I fegging hate FFN's formatting policy.