I'm sorry. I'm dreadful, etc, etc; I don't deserve your reviews and praise, and all that, and I'm an awful updater. And I'm sorry that you get these mediocre chapters for now, but I hace possibly one of the worst writer's blocks... not story blocks, but the words, they're crappy when they come out on paper. But if I didn't post something (and I certainly wasn't going to post to a journal in this state but perhaps I should have, they don't even properly reject you with a nasty review, still, I've come to rely on you) I would fall apart. I know it sucks, but I ask for your patience. And I love you.

Silence and its demons

Calm. It was an important word in the history of Spira. It meant much more than ceasefire or unexpected turbulent massacres, but that one day everything would be calm. The whole world would become still and full of that wonderful silence that meant Sin was no longer a threat. But silence is a threat in it of itself. The worst thing that could have happened to Rikku as she dreaded her trip to the Den of Woe was nothing—was a calm. It was a perfectly uneventful trip. The hover roared and the dust of the ground shook, but that was all the excitement she experienced on the way to the old Youth League Headquarters. No fiends, no breakdowns, no passerby's. Just her and her thoughts, and a very silent young driver, who didn't dare or wasn't interested in attempting to make conversation over the loud hum of the engines.

Time dragged along. The landscape was still, the white clouds still, which allowed her thoughts to run amok in her mind. They were anchored to the near future, to the Den of Woe and its horrible darkness. Her conscience would urge her on, then disagree, then despair over it, and it would continue like this in constant loop. At times, she was lapsing in judgment to the degree that she would admit that Gippal was right. But he wasn't, because though it may seem insane to him, he didn't know what she was going through. This trip was the only solution to her panic, her anxiety, and her nightmares. This whole ordeal had given her an almost unrecognizable personality. As soon as she conquered her fear, she would be back to her old confident self in no time. It had worked with the thunder, and it would work again.

She gave a sigh of relief when the old Youth League headquarters finally came into view. It had been turned into a museum and inn, where you could rest and at the same time learn about the Operation Mi'ihen tragedy and a very skewed—less than favorable—history of Yevon. She would get some water and supplies there to carry by hover to the edge of Mushroom Rockroad, where she would then have to trek by foot to the Den of Woe. The thoughts of the near future took her back to that day when she had entered the Den of Woe, very much against her will, with Yuna and Paine. They promised Nooj they would get the spheres to open the entrance, and she had been a little curious about whatever was hiding behind that complex puzzle of a door. But it hadn't been a cave at all, rather a tomb that with its uncovering, it awoke the dead that had long rested there. It awoke Shuyin and his demonic pyreflies. But what she had felt in there couldn't have all been Shuyin, because it wasn't just hate and anger that coursed through her veins, but evil.

At least, she thought that is what evil would feel like. They said that Shuyin fed off the despair in a person, and maybe it was not evil, but despair instead. It was utterly thick, and it pulsed and ached as it flowed through her. Those pyreflies pushed inside her and found the deepest place in her memories, nestled themselves there, spread like cancerous cells, and moved through her whole being creating voices, images and emotions too quick and too many to comprehensibly sift them out.

But among those voices, those faces flipping through her mind and the emotions ebbing and flowing, she heard her mother. She said, "Rikku, get out of here," and her voice filled Rikku with the memory of her mother dying, of Sin possessing the sky in a black storm cloud and the winds around them howling with people's screams. Her mother held tightly to Rikku's small body, running and hitting against other bodies, and then they both felt the suction pulling them to that monster. Her mother gripped to the first metal pole she could find and pressed her daughter between it and herself. Rikku yelped as the pain of the metal imprinting her back became overwhelming, but her mother held tighter. Rikku had never known her mother to be that physically strong. She was a thin, delicate woman—an unlikely build for an Al Bhed.

"Cid!" Her mother screamed in her ear, the roaring and howling overpowering the shrill of her voice.

"Aine!" was the distant call they heard. "Hold on!" But she wasn't holding on, her mother's grip and the pain on Rikku's back lessened with each stubborn pull of the wind.

"Rikku, hold on. I know you're strong, so just hold on until daddy gets here, okay?" Then her mother screamed. A Sinspawn grazed her back with its claw, but she disregarded the pain and turned Rikku over so that she could wrap her little arms and legs around the pole. "Grip it with all you've got!" she shouted as Rikku felt her mother's arms leaving her. "E muja oui," were her mother's last words to her.

"Susso, no!" Rikku yelled, watching helplessly as her mother let go completely, swiftly grabbing her knives and slashing the throat of the beast near them before she was pulled up to the heavens above them.

"Aine!" Cid yelled, appearing from the chaos and throwing himself toward Rikku, whose hands already hurt as her skin tore open against the rusted metal.

"Susso, susso, susso!" Rikku yelled, fighting her father, but he remained silently shielding her from the winds until they ceased and the skies began to clear again. As the screams hushed with coming light and the silence fell over them, Rikku lost consciousness. When she awoke, she was on a ship and Brother was next to her, with numb wide eyes and his face sallow, holding on tightly to her hand. The people screamed above them, "it's Sin again, Sin again!" and the ship began to rock. Both him and Rikku slipped under the bolted bed she had been sleeping in and wept silently until the roaring above them stopped along with the powerful sway of the ship. Then they shushed, shaking together while Rikku let out a few dry sobs. They were under there for hours, and it was days later when they would find out that their entire island had been swallowed and eviscerated by Sin.

---

When Rikku finally arrived at the inn, it was already nearing sunset. She knew she should have left earlier in the day so she could have made it to the Den of Woe, but there was nothing she could do now.

"You better stay for the night, Lady Rikku," Deka, the young Youth League man that ran the inn suggested.

"Yeah, you're right. How does the beach look at this time of day?"

"Quiet, and the tide's not too bad, but after sunset it gets a little violent. Are you going for a walk?" he asked.

"Yeah, I need to unwind."

The Youth League had built a sort of rocky pathway to the beach below. Most of the visitors that came by usually watched from atop and didn't dare go down. The beach was quiet and some rusty machina still protruded out from deep in the sand. Not everything had been washed up and discarded by the sea. Rikku took off her boots near the rock pathway, and walked along the seashore, her feet dunked under the water for a few seconds and her footsteps on the moist sand continually washed away with every wave.

She belonged to the sea. She could listen to the lulling sound of the tides and find comfort in it. No matter how hard you pressed your foot in the sand, how hard you ran, the sea would wash it all away. Under its surface, you could find all of Spira's history, buried and preserved there under the vigilance of the sea god.

As she walked alongshore, she noticed a figure in the distance. Something sparkled at the person's feet in the red and pink glow of the sunset. As Rikku ran toward the mysterious silhouette, she was able to make out features of a female body. The woman stood tall, staring toward the red horizon, her dark short hair tousled in black waves by the wind. She held the small glittering object in her hand, which appeared to be a sphere. As far as Rikku knew, no one usually came down all this way on the beach. Most people thought it a haunted place, teeming with the ghosts of Operation Mi'ihen and the shadow of Sin.

The woman turned toward Rikku as if she had been expecting her and smiled.

"Did that sphere wash up ashore?" Rikku asked, closely inspecting the woman's green eyes. They didn't have spiraled pupils.

"Yes, it came right to me. Would you like it?" Her tone was sultry and soft. Rikku shook her head.

"No, it's yours. Does it work? Have you watched it?" Rikku asked. Though she didn't want to keep it, she was still curious about it.

"No, there isn't anything to watch." She glanced down at the glowing sphere cradled in her arms and than back toward the horizon.

"Well, then it could be a dressphere," Rikku said.

"Lady Rikku," the woman turned toward her, startling Rikku a bit. She had no idea this woman had recognized her. "Keep it. It is not mine, but yours. I had a dream, and this isn't mine." She extended her hand out and released the sphere, which Rikku barely caught. She caught a chill from the sea breeze as the woman turned away from her.

"Wait, what are you talking about?" Rikku yelled after her. The woman continued walking until she reached a brush at the end of the beach and disappeared through the thicket. The sand suddenly seemed alien and glossy under the sun's glow. She needed to get away from the beach. She put the sphere away, because it kept picking up the sunlight like a magnet.

"Only me. Only this kind of crap happens to me," she muttered and pouted looking at the strange sphere in her hands. "Now I know how Yunie feels. Some people are creepy."

Noting that the tide had risen some since she began her promenade, she turned back, not willing to chase after the woman. It had been a harmless gift after all, and maybe she could get use of it. Too tired and a little resistant to try it on when she got to her room, she placed it in her bag and decided to sleep. The Den of Woe took precedence over everything else, so she drank some calming tea they sold down at gift shop and tried to sleep. It would be the most sleep she would have for a while.