Song of Silence
Everything ends now, the Final Aeon, Spira's hope, maybe even the world. I lie here, defeated and cold by those who rejected the methods I gave this world to defeat Sin. They have already moved on, to search in vain for another way to kill Sin, so I have no one to give my last words to. Even if there were, could I say everything I want to convey with so little breath?
This is to the world; please receive it before you end.
I am Yunalesca, the last person who remembers the real Zanarkand. For a thousand years, I lived in these ruins, unsent, waiting for those who journeyed to reward them with the Final Aeon. My path twisted so deeply that my past self could never have fathomed its destination. I spent so long trying to avoid tracing the road afraid of what I might find, but now I can't do anything but walk through my memories and answer my uncertainties.
Emotions defined my living existence. I remember smiling, laughing, crying at the slightest provocation. Zaon held my hand through so much, some doubted my strength to do what was necessary. When the war came, those same emotions gave me the will to fight, for I did not just fight because of my summoner's vows but because I had memories I wanted to preserve and people I wanted to protect. My feelings strengthened my ties to my Aeons and my guardian, placing me among the strongest of the battle summoners.
As I fought, I suffered though. I watched things fall and crumble like they were made of nothing more durable than glass and paper. I felt the connections to my Fayth splinter and tear as they died again and again for me, and then finally shatter when their statues turned to sand under the pressure of machina. Many summoners suffered as greatly as I, but one by one they learned to shield themselves, to harden themselves against the tragedies. They no longer suffered, and then they died, along with nearly everyone else.
The dumb little girl I used to be never learned. She chose to fall in love and find beauty in the person by her side. Adversity cultivates the hardiest flowers, and the love of Zaon and I had been planted the moment we met, but without the war, we would have never let it bloom. The love gave me the strength to keep running, and keep fighting, until my father summoned me to his room.
The war was not going well. Straight battles against Bevelle could bring no victories. He told me the bleak truth, the one any front line summoner knew just from waking up in the morning. So we must choose another form of victory. Zanarkand's memories and traditions must hold, even if the people and location must wither. He had the bones of a plan to share with me, and that night we discussed it, sometimes gently, sometimes violently. The following three nights, we refined those plans until we knew how much the present and future worlds needed to sacrifice for our victory.
The fourth night, with the touch of my fingers on Zaon's shoulder as I prepared to wake him up for the second time during our life together, my emotions started to withdraw. The other summoners sealed their hearts to keep fighting; I did so to stop fighting and start sacrificing. My brothers and sisters from Zanarkand first, then my father and city, and finally even my husband. I knew soon I would have to watch others sacrifice too, and my heart needed to remain hard.
I admit, when I walked into Bevelle to strike the deal my father--now Sin--and I had planned, revenge filled my heart. Those responsible for this travesty needed to know what we gave up for the sake of their victory and their machina. Back in Zanarkand, we simply thought to revive the tradition of Summoning and the Final Aeon to fuel the death and rebirth cycle of Sin, but as I thought of my father sacrifice, the idea to have them worship him satisfied a shameful urge in me. I smelled desperation sweating off the man to become the first Grand Maester of Yevon that I piled my demands on him.
On behalf of his city, and the rest of the world, he sacrificed more than any other individual. He gave his son to the temple to become a beautiful, powerful Fayth. Afterwards, he sealed himself away to write Yevon's teachings, those conditions my father and I demanded the people of the new world to follow in order to atone for their sins.
Zaon and I set the path every other summoner journeyed upon. Temples rose in honor of Yevon and our journey. People sacrificed for the sake of others, those who lost everything. In place of Zanarkand's warrior Fayth, this new world, Spira, provided its own. More than anyone else, those five nameless people shaped the next one-thousand years.
None of them had special skills or talents that would have made them famous in better times. Their talents had lain beyond their eyes and within their hearts. All of them saw and felt deeper than those around them. They suffered and lost to the point that becoming a Fayth gave them what they needed, an end without endings. In the midst of those who shouted to become part of the historical 'first pilgrimage', their spirits spoke louder until I could no longer ignore them.
I remember the little girl Valefor, so much like me, that I watched her walk into the temple, regretting that she would never know a man like Zaon. Those features that shone with sadness should have shone with youthful beauty in a happy world. She may never join her family or her brother, all of whom my father carried away on his initial rampages of Besaid. If I had a heart left, I would have apologized to that girl, that she must become a Fayth to resolve the sadness inside her.
I remember Ifrit and Shiva, separated by so much distance and by the barriers they themselves set up. As I watched his story and took his Aeon inside me, I knew Macalania needed a temple and a Fayth, not so much to finish his story, but to know what Ifrit could never know. If they knew before what they learned in their separation, they might have had a happy ending. As it is, I'm sure they opposed each other over the years, even as they stay together within the hearts of each summoner who prays at their Fayth.
I remember Ixion, the old man who wanted a legacy to pass on, so that he may die. He gave his house to Yevon along with his soul. For eternity, he gallops to the defense of his summoners. That man gained and lost everything, including both sons on opposite sides of the same conflict. Bevelle and Zanarkand's war affected not only the large cities, but people in every corner of the world. I never met either of them, but I understood the pain of his loss.
Finally, I remember Bahamut, the little boy who made a defiant dragon. I nearly cried as father and son parted in the temple, thinking not just of this separation, but of what Zaon and I could have had. No doubt when the son decided to make his sacrifice his father felt the conflict of pride and sadness, perhaps what my father might have felt when I agreed to carry out this plan of his. He loved his city without hating Zanarkand, even if he disliked me personally for what I forced his family to go through. For centuries, no one except that little boy took action to defeat Sin permanently.
And Zaon, my beloved Zaon. How wonderful to know in the end that he remained true to me in his heart, that the love we had for each other survived the test of the final Aeon. I loved him so much that I cried over the statue for the last part of my sacrifice. Sin killed me when I summoned my husband's Aeon, but I died before then, the moment I saw his handsome form turn to stone and become the Final Aeon. The summoner must witness the Aeons transformation, not only for the ritual, but to reassure me that they know the bonds they must give to Sin.
Death gave no respite from duty, and without Zaon waiting for me at the Farplane, I had no reason to want to drift there helplessly as so many souls have recently. Yet, the effort required to lift my dead self from the ground surpassed anything I knew. My spirit desired to rest with my body on a floor of broken road. The world never knew how close the Final Aeon came to never happening.
I made promises though, and the world depended on me to follow through. I dragged myself to the temple, wrapping myself up in a cloak of apathy and preparing for the long waits ahead of me. Though inevitable in that dark temple so far away from civilization, my humanity gradually chipped away, until only duty forced me to stop the transformation into a fiend.
Over the last milennium, everything and nothing has changed. Generations came and went, and people managed to carry on their family line. Many summoners attempted the journey to Zanarkand, and a few even made it. Only four after me had the will to sacrifice everything. Those four came to me so certain of their future, even when their guardians doubted, they never blinked. They won my respect, these summoners, for having the will of fighters and finding something to save in Spira. I think...if they lived in Zanarkand, any one of them would truly be the High Summoner.
Individual faces change, the world stays the same. Small towns never grew larger. Except for the High Summoner Gandof proving the truth of what I told the Bevellians so long ago, religious and scientific thought never progressed. The outside world remained as static as the Dream World through the seasons. I once watched both with fascination during my endless wait, but seeing the same events over the centuries hollowed my heart as I took to looking outwards at the stars until I sensed someone crossing Gagazet's peak.
The pilgrimage seems simple while the summoner trains at a temple. If one Aeon accepts a summoner as their master, chances are the rest will follow, but so many had lost their wills or life while traveling. The Aeons, once inside the summoner, leeched the energy needed to fight on as the terrain grows rougher and more bewildering. Most never make it to the ruins, and of those who do, not all find the will inside them for the final sacrifice. In that millennium, only four joined me to witness the truth of Sin's death.
For a thousand years, the Final Aeon gave hope to the world, and balance between the dream Zanarkand and Spira remained stable. The feared Sin sometimes brought inhabitants of one world to the other, though most died quickly enough as Sin deposited them in deep ocean. Only Jecht survived, a man I never remembered anyone dreaming of before. His celebrity commanded attention in Zanarkand, and his leaving the world seemed to change everyone.
It changed Spira as well. Luck let him survive, sent him to Bevelle just as the summoner Braska set out for his journey, and turned him into something real for all people in Spira. Choice fulfilled the Man from Zanarkand's destiny. The first Zanarkand Sin rose from Braska's Final Aeon; the first one who knew of the two worlds, who could learn how to intentionally bring people from one side to the other.
Braska's other guardian changed Spira too. Until the end, he refused to accept the Final Aeon. Like Jecht, he planned something that extended far beyond his life and the death I gave him. His summoner entrusted him with a duty, so did Jecht, and that man pulled together every bit he had to fulfill those promises. In another time, another situation I would have admired him, but I regret that I had to kill him.
The moment Braska's daughter entered Zanarkand together with that guardian and Jecht's son, I knew we would have to fight this battle. I tried to reason, to let her choose to follow in the path of her father, but in the end, they forced me to sacrifice them for the tradition of the Final Aeon. I counted on a battle with strong warriors. No weakling makes it to Zanarkand; I never counted on losing to them. So they walked out, wounded and victorious, no doubt bewildered about their next move.
Those who hold a strength that surpasses a thousand years, listen to my message. You stand at a precarious point now that you have destroyed the Final Aeon forever. If you are strong enough, perhaps you will find the way to defeat Sin permanently, but the truth still stands: without the Final Aeon, one world must die. For better or worse, the world must change now.
And as I lay here on the verge of dissolving and rejoining my beloved Zaon, I wonder whether I should praise or curse you all with my last breath. Only the future knows.
Perhaps someday I will know too.
The End
Author's Notes: Well, that's that. I planned the story to end with Yunalesca's final thoughts as Yuna and Co. defeated her. This isn't just her very abridged story as much as her reflecting on a world she's spent so much time. 1000 years is a long time to remain stagnant, and by the time she dies, it's obvious in the story that something must change.
Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this story. Thanks to everyone for your comments and reviews, I've appreciated them greatly.
Over and out.