Song of Shoes
Everyone has his price, lower for some than for others. If paid enough, anyone is capable of anything; even the most steadfast man will sacrifice his principles. At the same time, everyone has one particular thing they will pay any price for, and before they expire, everyone will pay their life's debts. I've come to that last point, I realize as I sit alone in a hole in this musty cavern. My time to reconcile debts has arrived, and no one cares if I am not ready to pay. My love of material goods and the promise of fortune brought me to this hole I dug, and only the statue I owe my demise to and the stray dog who followed me from Remiem are here to witness this defining moment of my eternity.
Only what I had dismissed as worthless can save me now. Training as a Blade of Honor, a prestigious military force of Bevelle, instilled in me secret techniques to control mind and body, and one of those could save me now if I retained the strength to use it. Silence can shield me, because if I could silence my thoughts and emotions, I could escape from the grasp of this rock. The leeching of those intangible things binds me to this statue as I fight to remember.
Breathe, I tell myself, recalling at least that from the teachings. Just breathe and clear your head. My thoughts rode away on every exhaled puff of air, but each inhalation brought new thoughts, much like waves retreating and advancing on the shore. Pieces of my memories pile up, topple over each other and fall, but none of them ever leave. My head remains crowded, and the newly-forming statue pulls me closer, extracting those bits of information from me. Until I have signed a full confession, I cannot stop myself from thinking. So I succumb, thinking of who I am and what I did.
They are the same though. My deeds are my identity; and I am nothing if not a man of action, of grand works. When I was honorable, I helped only the most in need; when I was a mercenary, I served only those with the most money; and now as a thief I stole only the most valuable objects. Small deeds are for small men, and I refused to be small. Honor, glory, fame, wealth: I sought desperately to become someone influential but never quite attained my only dream.
When I was honorable, glory went to the rich; when I was rich, glory went to the daring; and now that I am daring, I find that I dared too much for any sort of glory. No one remembers the individuals who become Fayth. So, I suppose that these thoughts are the only possible way that others will know of me.
My problem had always lay in my desire for the light of renown and the lingering envy of people who seemed to effortlessly attain the bright reflections I dreamed about. If personal weakness had caused me to remain unrecognized, I could accept that. My failings, however, I had never seen. In sports, I was athletic, in battle training, a hard-worker, in school, a bright student. Ability, aptitude, spirit, none of those indicators of success found any lack of themselves in me. No, my failure to attain glory happened because of much more complex aspects of myself and the society that I sought to please so much.
I spent the first part of my life an honorable man, and no one else ever lived the Code of Honor as precisely as I did. Help those who need help, the commandments said, and I did, the most wretched of the bunch. Ask for no payment and take inner peace as your reward, my mentors told me, and I did, feeding off personal satisfaction and cold rice. Discipline yourself to remain a sharp blade, certain proverbs whispered, and I did, always remaining stone-faced and resistant to worldly temptations. I lived by principles ingrained in me, although I still hoped. People always hope, even when they are trained to expect nothing, and I fear that I was the same. I might have expected little material reward, but I wanted renown, for people to invite me into their homes. But welcomes are not nearly so warm when one dresses in shabby clothes and wears layers of old dirt because beauty is a luxury. Money bought passage into the hearts and good-standing of others I concluded, and so I changed.
I renounced my position as a Blade. Poverty and honor seemed to have lost luster for more than just myself, for it seemed that the faction broke in the middle of yet another upheaval on Bevelle. I took the mask and became a mercenary, doing for the rich what I used to do for the helpless. Always competent and capable, I earned my generous pay. Presentable and with the occasional present, I achieved what I thought was glory as a Blade, but remained unsatiated. People bought my services, but they never spoke of me. They never gave me a name beyond my title. Still, I quested for riches and I held tightly to the belief that if I became rich enough people would eventually see me as a person and not as a commodity. Of course, fame still stayed out of my reach, as I became concerned by only the richest of clients. So concerned, in fact, that I turned down the surest chance to attain my goal for the temporary gain of money.
Until a couple of years ago, the people of Spira doubted Yevon's truth. 400 years, people, even priests, whispered, 400 years since Yunalesca had defeated Sin the first time and shown the world the way of the summoners. Every year, people tried to imitate her achievement, tracing her path from Bevelle to Besaid and then to the mysterious ruins of Zanarkand even further north than my home village. Every year, every summoner either returned or did not return, but none of them completed the pilgrimage. With Yevon in doubt, fewer attempted the pilgrimage, until only one wizened old man had the registered with the temples as an active pilgrim.
I will prove Yevon right or wrong, that old man Gandof said, if I do not defeat Sin, then you may say that it is impossible. Until then, we must hold belief in Yevon's teachings. To this day, I do not know if that statement was bragging or a simple factual statement that he was the only one who believed enough in the teachings to become the high-summoner in this age. I do know that I had finished escorting an older lady to the temple, and so overheard his statements and had the opportunity to become one of his guardians. He had three already: Yenna, Ziel, and Torak, all presumably close friends or family of his, but one more expert could never hurt, he told me.
I asked him what my payment would be, and for the first time since I became rich, I saw someone's eyes visibly darken towards me. Adventure, he told me, the discovering of a story much larger than myself, the small potential to be among the saviors of Spira. In other words, nothing I considered valuable. Of course, I chose to continue on my normal, lucrative job. Of course, not even three months later, word reached Luca that the old man Gandof and his three guardians had defeated Sin and brought the Calm to all of Spira, the first such period of peace in over four centuries. Yevon was right, everyone marveled, and statues of Gandof graced every temple from Bevelle to the backwater Besaid. Scribes wrote the story of Gandof and his guardians in the history texts. To think I could have been with them made me clench my fist with controlled rage.
The anger at the sly old man aside, the regret channeled my thinking into a new course. Money bought a certain amount of respect, true, but it was an anonymous respect that anyone could pay for, and no longer did it suit me. My name was more important, and I longed for people to whisper it in fear and awe. So I ended my life as a body guard and mercenary and began planning something so great, so terrible that if anyone could outshine High Summoner Gandof a mere two years after his Calm came and went, he would be me. I planned a theft.
I did not target any old bauble or trinket as another thief might have, but instead the most precious thing in Spira I could conceive getting close to. To honor High Summoner Gandof, his hometown of Remiem, a mere day's walk from mine, was granted licence to build a new temple to Yevon, with a close friend of Lord Gandof to become its Fayth, and thus carry some of the essence of the High Summoner to future generations. Already, the temple stood mostly complete, and the rock for the Fayth stood unsealed and uncovered in the chamber of the Fayth, relatively accessible for something so precious because most Spirans cannot conceive stealing such a sacred artifact. Most dismiss such an act as impossible, even.
To their credit, stealing any of the original Fayth was indeed impossible. Upon the pain of death, all those who were neither a summoner nor a guardian were allowed to even enter the Chamber of Trials, not to mention anything passing the trials themselves. Perhaps if I had succeeded with the Fayth rock, my ambition would have driven me to steal the real statues. And maybe, in retrospect, getting the real Fayth and getting away would have been easier than with this raw stone.
Getting my hands on the rock had been easy. Blade training had taught me well the arts of stealth, but for this operation, openness stood to my best advantage. Not just for getting in and getting out, but for recognition later, as the man who stole a Fayth. People always suspect the sneaky and respect the bold, and not a little bitterness drove me to make fools of them all. So when a man built for the heavy construction work walked into the temple with a large basket on his back few took any notice. Maybe a few noticed when that same man hauled a heavy load out of the temple, but none assumed he was more than the garbage man removing rubble.
Removing the fayth from town was easy as well; a simple cart and chocobos rented for the occasion worked well and remained congruous to the image of the humble garbage collector. The empty rock radiated no energy to give me away despite already being prepared for the Fayth ceremony, and the priests had already taken their weekly visit, so no one took immediate notice. I slipped through the gates of Remiem before the first alarm sounded.
Unfortunately, once out of town, I could not afford leave cart tracks across the wide expanse of abandoned I had to traverse. Sheltered Remiem was the only living town between Bevelle and Gagazet, and her borders did not leave scattered farms and residences outside of her protective crevasse. So when I entered the newly christened Calm Lands, Sin's second graveyard, I did so on foot with the Fayth strapped securely on my back. Earlier scouting had revealed an unguarded gorge and a cave where I could wait safely. Fiends and enemies I might encounter were no concern as long as no one knew the whole story until I revealed it and stole back my glory in a bold confession that scholars of history would remember for centuries, even beyond the time when we atone for our sins.
If any or all of the complications had been material, I would have succeeded, caught or free, everyone would have known my name. I planned for every mortal possibility, the odd guard, search parties, any handicaps extra weight caused, but I did not expect to fight hallucinations or that the solitary trudge from Remiem to that northwestern cave would prompt me to engage in the rare introspection.
The external landscape remained unremarkable, and only by following a sheer cliff wall did I find the path to the gorge, but internally, I met myself for the first time. I saw that craving for acknowledgment that I had carried as a child into adulthood, and I saw that craving as the mistake that postponed my glory. For the worthy must be valued in their own right. They do great deeds because they hold great beliefs and passions. Those renowned for wealth use their wealth not merely to show off, but for what they believe in. Those gain fame through honor personify their virtue and wear it like a crown that straightens their back. The bold are that way because they view the world as a place where safety gains nothing and loses everything. They achieve what I desire because they shine as themselves, while my actions were plain farce.
My true motive for this heist revealed itself as I crossed the bridge and looked for that path. Could it be a coincidence that I stole an object that would commemorate Gandof's successful pilgrimage? That I crossed a land he scarred to hide my burden? I did this as revenge towards that gnarled man, even if the historical victory would always belong to him. No, I did this to avenge the only other chance I had to let others know my name.
I reached that cave barely aware of my surroundings and even the dog who trailed behind me to share my food. Silly things, so quickly affectionate from campfire scraps, that what remained of my lucid self wondered why winning notice from humans remained so difficult. Having something follow me was novel though, so I kept him around, and as my fate became clear to me, I accepted that one stray dog would be my only follower and the only one to know what I had done.
Still, I believed the rock only drove me to madness. If I buried it in the cave, and never thought of the statue again, I could salvage my survival from this situation, I thought. My training as a servant of Yevon taught me the holy symbols of protection and sealing. Surely they were just as potent scratched into dirt as they were painted on expensive paper. Self-preservation drove me to frenzied digging. My hands bled with the effort of shoveling the hard ground, but eventually a hole deep enough to fit the rock formed.
Even now, thinking of the whole situation, I have no clue how I fell into this hole. Reason says clumsiness, but logic failed me too many times recently to be trusted. My instinct says the stone drew me in here, that somehow, it believes I am the one to carve it into a finished form. Very well, stone, I realize that this is my final debt to pay; may Yevon let me achieve my living dreams as an Aeon.
I am the thief of my own Fayth. I am Yojimbo.
Author's Note: In the game, Yojimbo functions differently from any of the other Aeons, particularly in that he insists on payment for fighting. So I'm exploring why this Aeon is so different from all the others. Also, I purposely took the concept of the 'Stolen Fayth' and twisted it from Tidus and Rikku's conception of the act. I saw them as reflecting their worries onto another person, and the truth could have been very different. Finally, Fayth are sealed after they were created, and while theft of them is not impossible, this, to me at least, seems to be a more likely scenario.