Songs of Roots
This is our dream. Three of us sisters gather around Yunalesca, and hands clasped to each other knowing that we're all about to become a final Aeon together. Outside the circle, watching our transformation, the fourth one, the summoner, waits. Four sisters made a promise to defeat Sin, and now we stand on the brink of fulfilling that promise.
We are the daughters of Remiem, the hidden training ground for summoners since the surrounding town died. Sequestered in a rocky nook on the border of the Calm Lands, the few summoners who knew of our home visited, and spoke to us who knew the summoning more than any other. Legend has it, that many centuries back, the High-Summoner Gandof lived in the old town, and they built the temple in celebration of his Calm. When it was near-completion though, the rock for the Fayth vanished, as if it had been stolen by a very clever thief. The actual town of Remiem did not last much longer, and in only a few decades all the citizens had either died or moved away.
Except for our family, the people charged with caring for the temple. Our ancestors did their duty, even when they saw no point. But even when handed a pointless, eternal task, people search for meaning, and inevitably find it. No one knew more about the mechanics of summoning than our family. Our studies brought about new abilities, new capabilities to the Aeons, so that they could get a summoner to his or her destination better. No one who knew of Remiem believed that coincidence caused all of the high-summoners since Gandof to train with us.
All those centuries though, and not one of our line of gifted summoners ever attempted a pilgrimage. We clung too much to our lives and our traditions and believed that perpetuating our wisdom for future summoners held more value than short-lived sacrifices. Things change though, so 600 years after the legacy of Remiem started, it ends, here and now, with us.
I am the oldest, the one who kept the records. Ever since I could write, I copied and took notes while the others summoned. My eyes surpass everyone's for the detail they see. I know the motions of summoning, the theory. I catch the faltering motions that separate the low-rate summoners from the first-rate ones. So, I knew I would not be a summoner.
Ever since she was born, I watched her potential, our summoner sister. We practiced with aeon's that were nothing more than controlled fiends, and her summons always managed to be stronger and tighter. My eyes recognized the beauty of her movements, the simple grace with which she called up her fiends. She possessed not only talent in spades, but the work ethic and the interest to keep improving, something which despite my perfect knowledge, I never claimed to own.
Summon theory was my love, and while the others played and ran around in the maze beneath, I found a flowery meadow where the sun shined warm, even this far north, and I wrote with loving detail the secrets my family kept amongst themselves for generations. From just after breakfast to sunset, I lay there and wrote, taking the occasional time to make crowns of the blossoms that surrounded me.
I loved summoning, and I always felt a little jealousy that she had talent that no one else had; but I loved summer and spring days more. The light of the sun and the warmth of weaving living plants into the crowns I always wore. Little sister lived in the darkness of the temple, learning, practicing, refining until not even the best summoners from Bevelle could compare to her.
So I watched and wrote, filling more and more of my pages until I reached the end. Stories of summoners and aeons filled those pages, except the last ones. Generations of our family recorded the journeys of all the summoners, but always one question remained unanswered: what happened at the end? Zanarkand remained a myth after so many years of research. Summoners passed through there on the way to the ruined city, but not one visited afterwards.
Nothing bothered me as much as those last blank pages in my books. Everyday, they mocked me, so that I longed to put something to mar their smug whiteness. My dreams were of the Zanarkand beyond the great mountain Gagazet. Somehow I would make it there and complete my project.
I keep records, weave flowers. Though I do not fight as my sisters do, I stand behind them, as the unbreakable wall.
I am Cindy.
Many generations of our family came and went, but the day our sister and we left for our journey was the first time we emerged to the Calm Lands and the wider world beyond. We all read the eldest's chronicles, but for the first time, we were actually living the story. Words had described the places and people we came across, sketches accurately depicted the geometry of the Aeons, maps guided us across unfamiliar landscapes, but until we experienced the world for itself, we had know clue why the summoners chose to save the world.
One by one, our sister collected the Aeons, and over many campfires, she told us stories of how they came to be. Every one she visited had once been a person, and during the short time she spent in the chamber, she had to know and accept them enough to persuade the person beyond the Fayth to help her. The reality of each Aeon awed us, as she called each one. No illustration, no matter how beautiful, could depict the full fearsome majesty of one of these monsters being released.
We traveled everywhere, from the great city of Bevelle to the tiny Besaid Island. Twice we crossed the Moonflow at dusk, just as the pyreflies rose from the water. The flickering lights entertained us as we swayed gently on the Shoopuf's back. Guado welcomed us into their city, and we crossed into the Farplane to find approval in the faces of our ancestors as we finally applied their research. Our investigations led us to hidden Aeons, one so isolated from the rest of the world, we had to spend all our gil to convince a boat to take us there. The summoner among us talked to the Fayth inside, and though she acquired the Aeon, she refused to summon it, saying that it was not her place and time to use it. The other one, we found buried just north of our home; Remiem's lost Aeon, the stolen Fayth. We did right by him, that last one. We all said our prayers, and then our sister sealed his statue as official Fayths were sealed. She said since we could not do anything for the man himself, we could at least let his Fayth be near equal to the ones officially sanctioned by Yevon.
No one denied that our journey was difficult, we crossed all terrain in all weather, and fought against all types of fiends. Sin attacked villages where we stayed, delaying our journey for days or weeks at a time, while our sister sent the dead and comforted the grieving. We learned that a summoner is more than her Aeons, or her technical skill. A summoner must take her strength from others while helping them grow stronger. A summoner worked her magic through the thoughts, memories, and feelings of others.
We understand now, the meaning of the summoner's pilgrimage.
I am the second, the one who leads. If I had the talent of my younger sister, surely I would have summoned. As it was, summoning bored me. Alongside my three sisters, I spent my childhood and my young adulthood learning the summoner's arts, but I never had any sort of knack. We learned theory; I wanted application. Each day after lessons I led expeditions to the edge of Remiem. A long bridge stretched from the temple steps to the exit, and it was an unspoken rule in our family that no one should cross it. But I did, regularly, watching the outside world from the crack, silently willing for the passing summoners to visit. Not for the training the other so valued, but to hear of the outside world.
Of the groups that visited, only one defeated Sin, a party of three men who seemed so much more than the normal summoners and guardians. Their friendship saw them through trials that ground down so many. One claimed to come from Zanarkand, but when pressed to tell more, he fell sullen as if confronting things he never bothered to contemplate before. The other two were ordinary Spirans, although the summoner had married an Al Bhed, one of the heathen tribe who disapproved of summons and Yevon. The last one lingered in the background, leaving no impressions on any of us sisters except for his presence. As sure as I knew the hidden corners of Remiem, I knew they would defeat Sin.
So when I saw two figures crossing the Calm Lands from south to north, I expected they were among the three pilgrims. I saw little from that narrow slit, two small red dots outlined against the bright blue sky. The man from Zanarkand vanished somehow since their visit, or so I thought until the summoner called his final Aeon. Sin's brown shell blotted out my view of the sky, but the summoner stood firm though he knew what would happen. A darker patch of brown, the summoner's Aeon, barreled towards Sin. Warm lights blocked my vision as the world suddenly exploded. Everything settled though, leaving one survivor to make his way here.
The surviving guardian stayed for a day or so to recover from his journey, and though my sisters and I all persisted, he told us nothing of what he saw in Zanarkand, or how exactly Braska defeated Sin. A stone expression hid a sorrow we all managed to see. Something about the process shook him, so much so that the next day, he left, heading towards Mount Gagazet, instead of where civilization waited to welcome him as a hero. For weeks, I waited for him to return, but he never crossed the Calm Lands again.
Ever since then, I wanted to know the dreadful mystery that man held. Why he felt the need to return to Zanarkand and why he never returned.
To solve the mystery of that man. I guard people and secrets with blades of fire and ancient magic. No one may harm what I deem sacred.
I am Sandy.
More difficulties face our party as we climbed Gagazet than we faced over any of the other thousands of miles. More summoners fail here than anywhere else along the journey; the numerous fiends we encounter prove that. Strong, angry souls feel the need to hinder us every few steps as they attempt to convince us to join their ranks. We refuse, of course, managing to send them by force to the Farplane where they belonged. We huddled together for warmth, rationed our meager supplies as best we could, anything to let us go on a few more steps.
We welcomed the sight of Gagazet's peak, so cold and clear compared to the narrow pathways below that we wondered if some magic affected the summit. More fiends crossed our paths including on so strong and so well controlled, that someone powerful must have sent it. Beyond here, no one but the heroes knew the stories, and they always remained silent.
The descent towards Zanarkand commenced in silence as we reflected on our journey and what lie at the end of it. The easily contemplated at Remiem gradually grew harder to face as we saw the broken city in the background. We intended to rush, discover the final truths with no delay, but when offered with a chance to relax one more time by a campfire, no one resisted.
Later, we learned that everyone who visited Zanarkand stopped at that little camp site at the outskirts. Mortality's weight pressed on us all so heavily the moment we step into the city limits, we felt the urge to reflect, and so we did.
It all ends so soon that we feel a need to start from the beginning.
I am the youngest, far younger than even my summoner sister. People pity that a girl so young must know life and death so well to feel the need to become a guardian. I don't consider myself too young for anything. I trained as well and as hard as my sisters did when they were children; I excelled at my own thing for the very purpose of supporting my sister. Unlike the rest of them, I knew since before my fifth birthday that we would journey. Wistful 'somedays' turned into 'when she is old enough'.
Summoner arts bored me as much as they did my second sister. Besides, we already had the summoner so I learned how to be a guardian. I worked harder than anyone to learn how to shoot the arrows the monster arena guy whittled for me. All my toys, including the wand I carried with me, were training instruments so that even as I played princess with a flowered scepter, I fought off the dragons on my own.
My life until the age of twelve consisted of equal amounts of active work and play; never resting until one of my sisters caught me and put me to bed. Even then, at least one of them had to guard my door until I fell asleep. Every morning, I gathered more effort to put into my goal of becoming stronger. The summoners that pass by the temples told of other child guardians, but not one praised their abilities, saying that the children often hindered progress especially through the more grueling parts of the journey. "If you ever decide to journey," they told my sister, "leave her behind."
Nothing made this tough girl cry, except for the thought of being separated from my sisters or not being able to journey with them. My sister smiled at their suggestions, and nodded as if in agreement, but always she winked at me, and reassured me as they left that I would always be among her guardians. Without me, they would not find the energy to get up and travel in the morning. Together, we all would show him what me and the rest of my family were capable of.
The day I turned twelve, everyone started scheduling for the journey ahead. Every meal was served on a tablecloth's worth of maps, as one or the other sister traced potential routes with their fingers. Supplies were counted, weapons and armor honed for the arduous journey ahead. Famous Remiem chocobos, specially bought and trained, were saddled with anything we could conceivably need. Or, I should say that I saddled each of those chocobos myself, taking pride at how helpful I was being even before we started our journey.
Nothing mortified me more than when my three sisters exited the temple on the day we were all to leave and explained that summoners and guardian's traveled only with enough supplies and gil to get them to the next temple safely. The paths we traveled would all be too narrow to traverse by chocobos. Beyond those stern expression though, all of them smiled.
I never believed in home, as my sisters did, or as the summoners who pass through do. The only place I belong is wherever my sisters are. I do what I can to be with them. I do what I can to never be stopped.
I am the constant energy of motion, the irresistible force.
I am Mindy.
Zanarkand was so far north that in this late autumn weather, the sun never rose. Each day we spent in gloom was another day we debated whether the night was seasonal or truly eternal. We believed there must be light, somewhere, but its obvious lack dampened our spirits. We finally reached the dome where dead soldiers and ancient machina weapons assaulted us. Like a giant sphere, the memories of the dead played around us, so that when the fiends let us be, ghosts interrupted our journey. Recognizing some of their names from legend, we played a morbid game after we watched each of their scenes. We quizzed each other on who they were, where they were from, and what year they visited our home.
No travel games stopped our journey's progress, and when a man finally greeted us, we didn't turn back. Our travels haf been long, and our muscles had resigned themselves to a permanent state of fatigue. Not one of us wouldn't welcome respite, but we continued on at his insistence. The lady Yunalesca waited for us past the last Cloister of Trials. Even here, our weapons and wits knew no rest as we must fight one last, difficult fiend.
Not a single Yevon-worshiping person would pass up the chance to meet the first high-summoner, the one who made the first pilgrimage to the ruins of her hometown to defeat Sin. If one person had the honor of being universally recognizable, it would be Lady Yunalesca, who we were told waited at the end of the trial along with the Final Aeon.
The Fayth itself surprised everyone almost as much as the prospect of meeting Yunalesca. Everyone knows the Final Aeon exists and exists here because the summoners who made to Zanarkand had the Final Aeon and defeated Sin. We rested around the light and life giving sphere at the corner of the chamber, each of us speculating on why exactly the stone was empty.
We had no clue how long we waited before Lady Yunalesca appeared in all her glory. Archaic features stared down at us, so far distant from humanity that we wondered if she felt compassion. When, she spoke though, her proud voice was gentle as she told of the choosing. Our summoner sister must choose from the three of us who she wanted to transform into the Fayth for the Final Aeon. Like we learned earlier in the journey, the summoner's strength depends on the bond between her and the Aeon, and only a very personal bond had enough power to defeat Sin. That Final Aeon eventually changed into Sin, and so any bond weaker than the one that existed before it would fail.
Of course our sister loved us dearly and equally, just as we loved her, the overachiever. No matter who she chose, we could surely defeat Sin. The problem we foresaw though lay with the two surviving sisters. Only the oldest among us had any clue how it felt to be alone in the world, and even she had been young when the second was born. Everything we did, we did together, as the four of us.
In the end, we all chose to end together. The four of us walked into the room beyond the Fayth's chamber as one and explained to Yunalesca our situation. If she felt surprised, no line or expression on her face betrayed the emotion. A nod of assent confirmed her willingness to transform all of us to the Final Aeon as she bade us to join hands, and instructed the summoner to stand to the side.
Think of your sister, she commanded us. Think of the relationship you all share with her, and with each other, for that is the power of your Aeon. Then think of the form you wish to take to assist your sister in the defeat of Sin. We obeyed, and now we unite as one Aeon in three parts. All that remains to do is decide our form exactly.
Together we dream of flowers in a bright meadow. We loved flowers. We loved movement as well. We desire the ability to act of our own will. If we had time to step back and watch our metamorphosis, we might ask how and why we turn into brightly colored insects buzzing around Yunalesca before we disappear into the Fayth. We don't think it matters right now. We went happy; we went powerful; we went together.
To our last sister, Belgemine: Use us wisely. Let us make you strong.
We are the Aeons who cannot be commanded and cannot be separated. We are the Magus Sisters.
Author's Notes: I spent so long wondering how to write this part, knowing that I would have to combine three or more stories into one part that when I finished Anima's story I dreaded starting this one; however, as soon as I started, the structure became clear. I know the general stories for the Aeon's before I write them; but this one perhaps filled the details much easier.
Belgemine is one of my favorite NPCs in the game, and I've always wanted to write a story about her using the Magus Sisters as the Final Aeon. They just seem so completely hers just as Anima ultimately belongs to Seymour. I'm happy that I could stick with that original vision and see it through to this. The only thing that changed was the chronology. At first, I planned to have Belgemine's pilgrimage take place between Seymour's and Braska's, so every Aeon could follow a chronological order. It's just that when I realized that these people were perhaps the only non-summoner, non-guardians who could watch the defeat of Sin, I decided that an encounter with Braska, Auron, and Jecht merited the slight disruption in chronology. That said, I'm satisfied with this part.
Jecht is next, and after that a finale. Comments and criticisms are greatly appreciated.