In These Walls
Portrait of Salvation
The past was a rocky superfluous concept for the Al Bhed, whereas Yevon seemed to thrive from it. While the Al Bhed constantly lived in the idea of tomorrow and progress, Yevon built its kingdom on repression and regression. The war of machina a thousand years ago had been the catalyst that would plunge the Al Bhed race into a huge and cyclical dispersal, and push Spira under the power of Yu Yevon's teachings. A man that Rikku, along with the rest of guardians, eventually came to know as Sin. Or something like that, for even years later, it would never be quite clear in her mind how the whole armor of pyreflies, with Yu Yevon as its mastermind, really worked. But that was Yevon for you. Everything that sprouted from the religion had come from some illogical unsatisfiable reasoning. With Yevon, the less it made sense, the better. The more they could convince the masses that they were right with their superstitions and teachings (which by the way, no one exactly knew where they were written, if they were written anywhere), the better it was for all the maesters and priests of Spira. She didn't profess to exactly know what Yevon was all about, but it did bother her that no other beliefs could stand up to it.
Having lived so long in the desert, isolated from the world, would leave a person kind of clueless about some things. At the moment (this particular moment meaning during the pilgrimage to kill Sin), Rikku juggled the different concepts in her head: this cursed religion versus her loyalty to the Al Bhed. She had always considered Yevon to be some kind of nonsensical jarble, but then, as she found herself waiting for Yuna and company to finish their visit to the dead in the Farplane Glen—a kind of ethereal cemetery—she couldn't help but try to make sense of all the conflicting ideas running through her head. Her cousin was a summoner, which meant she was like the priests and maesters—she was a Yevonite. But Rikku, after dozens of thought battles in her mind, concluded that first and foremost, she was family, and nothing in the world could possess Rikku to abandon family.
There were some methodological theories in Al Bhed literature on what exactly pyreflies were and how their reactions with human memory and the psychological brain waves of sorrow had some kind of reaction in them that produced illusions. Not that no one had tried to scan them and analyze them before, but the Al Bhed were usually never allowed in the Farplane or didn't want to go near it. The phrase she had spouted before Tidus had gone in—"Memories are nice, but that's all they are"—was a common Al Bhed saying. It had to do with survival. It had to do with the dozens of Dispersals her people had endured.
Rikku dug into her pocket, feeling too idle and growing impatient of the wait. She pulled out several small sugar candies and turned around to glance at Auron, who still stared out into space and away from the entrance. He was as reluctant about the whole affair as Rikku was, if not more so than her.
"You like sweets?" Rikku turned around and extended her hand with three multicolored ball-shaped treats. Auron shook his head, suddenly grimacing, as if he knew ahead of time (and ahead of Rikku herself) that she would soon attempt to strike up a conversation with him. It only took two more minutes before she addressed him again.
"So what's the real reason you don't go in there?" Rikku asked, and his face remained stoic. She realized he had no intention of responding, but she continued to pry. "I mean, 'I don't belong there' may have worked for Tidus, but that really doesn't make any sense."
He grunted, and Rikku smiled to herself. She was getting somewhere, she could tell from the scowl he was trying to conceal. It was so like men to hide all their emotions. She should know. She had grown up babysitting the men around her.
"You're not scared, that's obvious, but you do seem to dread it." Another grunt, and she wanted to laugh right there. She knew she had him.
"What about you?" he simply said. She pulled back with her brow wrinkled to an expression of confusion.
"What do you mean?" She began playing with the belts of her leg. It was a nervous compulsion—fidgeting with anything on her that dangled.
"You don't really believe that it's just pyreflies reacting to your memories, do you?" Auron had his eyes closed now and his face deep into the neck of his red coat. The long scar across his right eye was suddenly spark of threatening lightning. Rikku shifted in her position uncomfortably.
"Of course I do," she said with a smile.
"You're as bad a liar as Yuna." He opened his good eye and regarded Rikku for a moment, and then he closed it again.
"It's not that. I mean, the Al Bhed, we," she stopped. She didn't know what she wanted to say.
"The Al Bhed don't get sent," he interjected.
"Yeah, you understand. I mean, this is a Yevon thing, not really my cup of--," she said, but he interrupted her again.
"Being a guardian is 'Yevon thing.'" Goddamn it, she thought, when had the conversation turned around on her?
"That's different. I just don't like the farplane. The farplane is place of sorrow and remembering all those that were close to you that are dead. Well, that's too many people for me." Rikku stopped and placed her hands over her mouth. She had blabbed way too much.
"Everyone has a lot of people they lost," he countered, but this struck the embarrasment from her and instead summoned up anger.
"No," she whispered. "Not like the Al Bhed. Do you know what the average Al Bhed lifespan is?" She had stood up and neared him. "Twenty-five years. Do you know what the rest of Spira's lifespan is with Sin and everything? Thirty-five. How old are you? Forty? Our lifespan doesn't even begin to compare with anyone's." She would have continued, but Auron had his eye open and focused on her. He finished the thought she had in mind.
"Except a summoner. Most summoners die before they even reach their mid-20's." Rikku sighed.
"I hate the Farplane. I hate pyreflies. I hate them because they inexplicably keep your saddest emotions and make them into pictures. The pictures don't even talk to you, they just stand there, and they don't do anything. They're just portraits." Rikku shook her head. The doubts, the anger and the fear were all spilling out of her. She needed to stop talking.
"You've been in the Farplane before," Auron simply said, and Rikku smiled nervously, another one of her many antsy quirks.
"I know. It's obvious it scares me. I just hate it." After a brief pause, he stood up and grabbed his sword as if he could sense them coming.
"At least, you admit it. That's a wise thing," he uttered his last word as the first person emerged back from the Farplane portal.
All she could think of was that she was more than ready to leave, because it reeked of death. It reeked of something wicked and unnatural.