Song of Wheels
Have you ever been caught between two things? Between the need to obey one person and the need to defy another, even if they want the same thing? Maybe somewhere there's a way to do both. I don't like Yunalesca; she's the one who made me and my family suffer. I love my father, as icky as it is to say, so I want to honor him too. I think I've found a way to do both, so I talk to the rock and become a Fayth like Yunalesca expects and maybe start things that she'll never see coming.
The other Fayth told stories to the stones, Yunalesca said. Well, they were also grown-ups too, and they had those stories to tell. I don't really... there was this one time when me and this other kid sneaked into the blitzball stadium and watched the teams play without a ticket. Well, we tried to; our parents caught us before we could get past the front gate. Or the time when I saw the Zanarkands' Aeons coming over Bevelle ready to destroy us, when an airship squadron annihilated the summons right before everyone's eyes. The explosions looked like fireworks, sad fireworks though. Mom and dad and little brother were okay and so was I, but I liked seeing those terrifying Aeons kind of, before I realized what they could do.
They reminded me of Evrae, Bevelle's guardian. Sometimes you could see her flying through the air at night, with her tail whipping at the wind. My father said that she was sent here by St. Bevelle after he died, and so she watched over us. When the Zanarkands would come close to destroying our homes, she'd fly between them and the Aeons while our Airships fired at the line of summoners. I liked watching that, although I felt so sorry for the Aeons and maybe even the summoners a little bit. We learned in school that they were evil, but my dad used to say they were just a little misguided. My father's friends called him a diplomat; his enemies called him wishy-washy. War never suited my father because he believed in what he called 'gray areas'. Like even though they sent Aeons here to destroy our homes, sometimes our machina would destroy theirs.
I'd try to imagine a Zanarkand kid watching with that wonderful frightful feeling as our Airships loomed over their horizons and their Aeons coming out of nowhere to defend their home. I'd try to imagine a home where Aeons did the work machina did, although when I told my father about that he just laughed at me and explained that the Zanarkands had machina to do their everyday work, but they believed that depending too much on machina would somehow destroy the bond they had with their Aeons. So they started rejecting our machina. They forbade any airships to fly over their cities, even though there was some good material that we needed up north, and they even sent Aeons to warn them off. According to him, things got worse from there, and it became a battle of ideals: Machina versus Aeons.
But Zanarkands use machina too. And we have Evrae, which I guess is kind of like an Aeon who guards all of Bevelle. There isn't really one or the other. Whenever I say something like that at school, the teachers send me to have a talk with the headmaster, who calls my parents. Father is on the council that rules Bevelle and our family is pretty powerful anyway. Anyway, the school punishes me when I say things like that, and my parents will lecture me in front of the headmaster for thinking such dangerous and subversive thoughts. When we got home though, Father would treat me to some ice cream and say that I've done good work by trying to think about things rather than accepting what was fed to me.
I always liked the Aeons too, what little I saw of them during the war. They were horrible and terrifying, but I always wondered what it would be like to see those creatures on my side. Famous Aeons abounded: Leviathan, a great snake who brought with him tidal waves that washed out the lower districts; Titan, who made the earth rumble with his footsteps; Alexander, who shone like a mystical castle in the sky when his summoner called him in the middle of the night. We learned their forms and how to defend against them, but I'd not pay attention and draw my hands over the illustrations. They weren't real, but their mere presence had a weight I couldn't resist. They were similar to Sin that way.
Our first warning about Sin came from a messenger from the Zanarkand front knocking on my father's door and gasping. They'd just been ready to strike the decisive victory, he reported, but then this great monster showed up and trampled the city flat in just a few minutes. With Zanarkand in rubble, it turned towards our troops, as if regarding them with interest. That messenger and a handful of other soldiers were the only ones from that regiment to make it back to Bevelle alive, if only to report that Sin was last seen heading in our general direction.
Murmurs followed the rumor of Sin's appearance. My classmates used to tell stories about the big sea monster and how our Airships would take him down easily even before the got to our side of Gagazet. But I knew he'd come here, and he did. The first time I saw Sin lumbering upon the coastline of Bevelle, it was sunset and the reddish light cast a spooky glow on his scales. He stretched further than we could see, and for a moment, I thought that he must have ate Zanarkand because a beast that size surely fed on cities. Part of him looked like an Aeon, but none of our airships could outlast him long enough to drive him away from our shore. We don't know how many people died from Sin's first attack, but large parts of Bevelle were nothing but piles of metallic shards afterwards. Bevelle already had a huge temple in dedication to our favorite saint, and the priests there took in all the homeless and the orphans they could. My family was okay and my house didn't get destroyed, so I was lucky, at least right then.
After his first rampage on Bevelle, Sin didn't retreat like everyone thought he would. Instead the monster lurked at the edge of our sight, regarding us with what I thought was a wary eye. The adults assured me that Sin was only a monster who couldn't think, but I knew better. He was waiting for something to happen before he moved on or attacked again, and I think that something was the last High Summoner of Zanarkand, Lady Yunalesca.
We learned something about the important Zanarkand figures in our class at school. Yu Yevon was the High Summoner until the end of the war, which means that he was the one who led the summoner armies and controlled the most powerful Aeon. But he'd disappeared around the time that Sin showed up to eat Zanarkand, so Lady Yunalesca represented the few survivors of Zanarkand, although only she and her husband Lord Zaon met with my father and the council so we never found out how many survivors there were.
Things changed in Bevelle too after the end of the war and Sin's first attack, and I guess it's because of those changes that I'm the one in this chamber instead of anyone else. You see, my father, who used to be mocked by the rest of the council for being weak and wishy-washy was now the best person to try to make the peace with the Zanarkands. So he got elected the new leader of Bevelle. Maybe his enemies knew what was going next, or they didn't want to have responsibility anymore, now that they knew they never actually won the war. Or maybe they were really confused and wanted my father to help them.
So my father was the High Statesman of Bevelle and the person responsible for meeting with Yunalesca. The lights in our house would stay on all the time, even when the rest of Bevelle slept. Sometimes I'd wake up late at night and I'd hear those murmurs, the negotiations between us and the Zanarkands. They knew how to tame Sin for short amounts of time, and they were willing to share their secrets under certain conditions.
My luck ran out during those negotiations. The final night, the one where Yunalesca and my father finally reached a compromise. My father and her would make a new church in worship of her father Yu Yevon, who was Sin now and who would always be Sin until we atoned for our sins. People everywhere would construct temples in honor of Yu Yevon and to house the Fayth for the new Aeons the future summoners would need to train themselves in order to defeat Sin. Use of machina would be limited, if not completely discontinued. Yunalesca would undergo the first pilgrimage to become the first High Summoner and bring about the Calm, a short time without Sin. She would oversee the constructions of the temples and choose those to become the Fayth. All kind of basic and boring, except for her last condition.
"Bevelle will be safe from Sin, but only if you sacrifice someone important to become the Fayth."
I heard my father offer to be the Bevelle Fayth, only he couldn't be because he had to lead the new church when Yunalesca was gone. I guess what she meant was the Bevelle people had a habit of making the poorer people do the work while the richer people got to play. So we would probably make a poor person give up their life to become the Fayth. I don't think Yunalesca liked that idea and that's why she gave that condition.
During this conversation, I stood outside the mostly closed door, peering into the room and watching the discussion between my father and Yunalesca. Neither of them made a point until then to notice me, although I knew my father could at tell I was there. Nothing ever got past him. But when the condition about someone important becoming the Fayth, Yunalesca turned towards where I was watching. I swore I never saw my father get madder than he did when Yunalesca suggested that his oldest son become the Fayth, not even when I colored on the walls as a little boy. Not even when his enemies called him weak.
For all that my father was a easygoing man, when his temper broke I never wanted to be anywhere near him. Yunalesca though, continued sipping the strong tea my father served for political stuff, and waited for his temper to wane. She then explained the sacrifices that every other city in Spira had to make for the sake of Sin and her own sacrifices if she were going to undergo a pilgrimage for the people who destroyed her home. Someone important to the new Grand Maester, me, had to be sacrificed. Of course she gave us the choice to think about whether we'd accept the offer, while she journeyed to the other cities, but looking at my father, I thought he had already made his choice.
He accepted the time to think though, almost impassive, although when Yunalesca left shortly afterwards, he called me to him and gave me the biggest hug he could manage. Seriously, for a second or so I thought I was going to die from suffocation before he let go, but I guess I didn't mind it that much. He promised that he'd think of some way I could be saved, if I didn't want to become the Fayth of Bevelle before Yunalesca came back. Or he could not strike out that condition and let Bevelle get struck down, but my father was never the type to sacrifice Bevelle's safety for anything.
Months and months passed, and my father never thought of anything. He'd accepted that I would have to become the Fayth and that he'd rather just spend the time with me and my mother and my three-year-old brother than trying to find someway to thwart the person who could help his people. Besides, there were whole districts of this city to rebuild, and I guess he'd rather think about that. I would have too, but I always tried to think of some way to get around Yunalesca without upsetting my father. And eventually, I had a plan too.
When guards posted on the border to Macalania woods informed my father that Yunalesca would reach Bevelle in two days, I put my secret plan in action. I remember packing up a few sandwiches and some cookies into a bag along with my favorite book and maybe a couple of toys, and then sneaking out of the house while my mother was busy taking care of little brother, and my father was at the temple, watching the construction of the new Fayth's chamber.
What followed were the worst three days of my life. Even with my best jacket, the one with the old symbol of Bevelle embroidered on the back, the non-stop rain during that time soaked through so that I was shivering cold and wet. My sandwiches ran out after only the first day, so my belly remained kind of empty until I found out that some people who were nice enough to buy a poor kid a hot dog as long as he wasn't too scruffy. But after just one day, I was much too ragged. I slogged through puddles and took off my shoes when they got too heavy, so by the time I made it through a particularly long series of puddles, I had dropped them somewhere and couldn't find them again. I tried not to, but it seemed like whenever I had a few moments of rest, I spent them thinking of my parents being worried than I did playing or reading like I thought I would. I hid down in the lower districts, as far away from my house, so I don't remember hearing people call out for me. I did see pictures of me, all clean and happy, and apparently no one made the connection between the son of the future Grand Maester and the dirty little homeless kid, curled up for warmth in a building corner.
Even all of that was better than going home and being Yunalesca's Aeon. Ever since she made my father sad, I stopped liking the Zanarkands. They were all dead, and I didn't want to be part of their scheme to punish Bevelle, which is what this was. Yu Yevon was her father, right? I know that if my father did something that upset me or mom so much, he would try to change. Grandfather did that sometimes when he and my father had disagreements. So why did we have to go through so much to stop something for such a small amount of time?
My charade ended yesterday, four days after I ran away and the evening after Yunalesca's arrival. The search parties finally came down into the poorer districts, and one of them recognized the Wheel of Bevelle on the back of my jacket. At that time, I was feeling kind of bad, both sick and guilty about running away, and the people were nice enough to feed me and let me dry me off a little bit. I thought they would take me home, but instead they took me to the temple, where both my father, dressed up in new priest robes and now the official Grand Maester of Yevon and the Lady Yunalesca stared down at me disapprovingly. Well, no, my father hugged me when he first saw me, and then stared down at me disapprovingly. Neither of them yelled at me, not right then. My father took me into one of the side rooms of the temple and then proceeded to yell at me. First, about worrying them so much, and second, for shirking my responsibility to Bevelle. Yunalesca was giving every citizen a gift by promising Bevelle's safety, and he would rather that I live forever as an Aeon than die on the street where he'd never see me again. How long could I have lasted? Not as long as an Aeon surely, and maybe not long enough to grow up.
I don't cry much. Not even when I was caught in the rain with no food and my shoes lost and trying to hide from people searching for me, but I was crying then, like I was now, having found a story to tell this rock. My father hugged me a long time and told me that I had to become the Aeon because I was smart enough to think of some way to defeat Sin for real while I was a Fayth. I agreed then, holding on to the hope that I could do things as a Fayth that I couldn't as a boy. We walked out hand and hand to tell Yunalesca that I agreed to be the Fayth of Bevelle.
The three of us walked through the new Cloister of Trials and to the room before where my chamber would be. The antechamber, Yunalesca called it. And then she took me aside and told me lots of things. I still didn't like her, but I didn't want to disappoint my father or my city, so I listened to her. And I guess, what I learned there is sleeping in my head to take form.
A lot of the stuff she told me was normal how-to: How to talk to the stones to become the fayth, how I had to say the shape that you want to be. And then she told me about Sin, and the city inside of him. A dream Zanarkand, she called it, as the surviving Zanarkands became Fayth at the top of Gagazet and dreamed up people to live in that imaginary city. Sin would last forever, she said, unless people from the dream Zanarkand sacrificed themselves to destroy Sin. Otherwise, things would go around in a circle.
So here I am now, in this chamber, still barefoot in dirty, torn clothes. Since I made up my mind, I didn't want to go back home. I'm not happy doing this, but I know that somewhere inside me I have a plan. Fayths dream up the imaginary Zanarkands, and I'm a fayth. So one day, maybe I'll get the power to dream up a Zanarkand who will come back to this world and see that it is worth saving. I can change things. I guess that's a story because the rock seems to like it enough to pull me in.
I want to be big and powerful, the symbol of Bevelle. I don't want my future summoners to have to make hard choices like my father did. I want to be a dragon like Evrae, with the Wheel of Bevelle attached to my back like I was still wearing my favorite jacket. I want my voice to be more powerful than Sin roaring. I want to be like one of those magnificent, powerful Aeons that the Zanarkands used to release on our town back in the old days, the ones that still fascinate me so much.
I want to be...Bahamut.
Author's Notes: Please forgive me, for these notes are long and try to explain things.
Bahamut was the most difficult Fayth to write for so far, and this is actually the third version of his story that I started, and the only one I actually completed. At first I conceived him as a homeless kid whom the Bevelle maesters were sacrificing so that no one who really mattered would have to give up their life to become the Fayth, which is pretty much the opposite of this version. I'd had that image of him ever since I had the idea to write about the Fayth, but when it came down to put things down on paper, it seemed too...simplistic to do things that way. Bevelle was still the evil city of FFX and FFX-2, Yunalesca would have been a temporary mother figure to Bahamut Fayth, and she would offer him the chance to dream up someone that he wanted to be, which didn't give me a chance to question her motives as anything less than pure.
So I made him the son of the most powerful man in Bevelle, and suddenly Yunalesca could very well be doing this for revenge. Those Bevelle politicians, at least one anyway, did have redeeming virtues. And I think I could explain the kid being slightly more observant about political things and less jaded than a homeless kid would realistically be. I think his character here also accounts for him being more active in Tidus's journey through Spira than any of the other Fayth.
So if this wasn't what you expected, take comfort that I didn't expect this either.
As always feedback is welcomed.