Chapter 8:

The woman stood before them, looking at them as if they were the intruders. Her hair was a bluish grey, and oddly—because she had just come from the water—she wore an outfit of leather. Her eyes were a dim purple that somehow didn't stand out in horrible contrast to her hair and fair complexion. The look she was giving Harper and Vincent was nothing if not … electric.

But the withering look didn't last long: it soon turned to one of utter confusion. "Hello?" she ventured, hoping that these strangers spoke her language.

Harper burst into laughter while Vincent just looked on.

"Where am I?"

"Spira…" Harper's laughter came to an abrupt halt when she recognized the same tone she'd had when she'd shown up there. Man, Spira is pretty fond of abducting people, isn't it? she thought to herself as she stood up. "Lost are you?"

The woman's face lit up, contrary to what she said, "Very!"

The two opposites threw Harper off, but Vincent was quick to understand. "You don't understand why we speak the same language, or how you got here, do you?"

"Notta bit! I'm just happy you do and that I don't seem to have intruded on some kind of trouble…have I?" She suddenly looked very worried about the suggested intrusion.

"No, no trouble here," Harper assured her, now that she understood. "Where are you from?"

"Oh…well…I don't think you'd—"

"DON'T. Say. That," Harper cut her off. "We'll believe anything you say. The same thing happened to us…I think." She got a stare in reply. "Come on then." When the other still didn't speak up… "Fine. You want us to go first?"

The stranger nodded.

"All right, but first, what's you name?" Vincent asked.

"Yx!" she chimed.

(A/N) Dearys…that's pronounced short i and the normal x sound. … like… Icks. Lol.

Haper told an abbreviated form of her story, and then Vincent his. Yx then opened up and spilled out that she didn't really know where she was from, only that her companion had left. Her world was of beasts and lightning. When her companion left, she followed, and "this 'Spira' is where I was led…or where I followed him to," she explained. Finally she said that it felt as if she had just woken up from a lifetime of sleep… Vincent in turn said that he understood.

"So…who knows what we do next?" Yx asked, seeming very comfortable with them after telling her story, and listening to theirs.

"Well…I'd like to say that you could stay with us, but … that's up to Auron and Yuna right?" Harper asked Vincent.

He only nodded.

"You two aren't on the best terms, huh?" Yx guessed.

"No."

It was almost daylight when the three finally made their way back to the inn and woke Auron, who didn't like the fact that this was the third person "from a different world." To him it was beginning to seem a little too much like a conspiracy. What was it Isaaru had said about summoners? They were vanishing on their pilgrimages? "Of course," he said when everyone was done talking. "We'll have to talk to Yuna. She's the one who decides who comes and who doesn't."

Feeling they had Yx's spot assured, Harper and Vincent took this as Auron's approval and left. Yx ended up staying with Harper and Lulu, who was thankfully asleep when the two girls entered.

Only a few hours later Auron was again at their door. He had already told Yuna what Harper and Vincent and Yx had said in the night, and she was prepared to meet Yx. Harper hoped everything would work out as she and Yx walked down the hall behind Auron, but then… that would be too easy, wouldn't it?

Yx stopped dead in her tracks when she first laid eyes on the High Summoner. "Who…are you?" she asked Yuna.

"I am High Summoner Yuna, you must be Yx," she introduced herself and motioned for Yx to have a seat.

"High…Summoner…Yuna?" Yx repeated in question form as she sat across from Yuna.

Yuna nodded.

"…but…"

"Yes?"

Yx's mood changed. "Then why do I recognize you as though I've spent my entire life with you before?"

Yuna was taken back by that, and she admitted, "I…I don't know."

Yx narrowed her eyes at the summoner. "Your name is Yuna, not Ixion?"

Everyone jumped at Ixion's name. "Why…I know Ixion!" Yuna exclaimed. "He is an Aeon I have just acquired from the Fayth! The thunder Aeon… to be… what's wrong?"

"It's… Ixion, he was my companion, now I fear I'll never see him again." Yx began studying the fibers of the couch she was seated on. "You see…I don't know much of anything about where I'm from, and I suppose that's because I was too preoccupied with Ixion…but I've heard that when someone goes to a place called "chamber of the Fayth" one of the many companions always…or almost always…gets called away, to war… or something. I've never heard of any ever returning to his home…"

No one said anything. So this girl was from the realm of the Aeons…? That was something the original party could grasp at least a little bit easier than taking in Harper and Valentine's stories. This was also more believable, in their eyes.

"Please…if you have my Ixion with you…You MUST let me accompany you!"

A moment passed before Auron spoke up, "Do you know where we are go—"

"I DON'T CARE!" Yx exploded, "Please…I have to be with Ixion…you see…it's rumored that when an Aeon leaves…his companion dies out in a short while…from heart-ache." She raised her eyes to Yuna and continued pleading silently until…

Yuna smiled. "You are welcome to travel with us."