Chapter 5: Moonflow
Darkness fell as Quistis and her guardians walked back along the length of Mushroom Rock Road. They passed a number of Crusaders making their way to the sanctuary of the temple, but not half as many as Quistis expected to see. She struggled to fathom the idea that only a few lucky survivors remained from the busy, bustling camp she'd stood in that morning. When she crossed paths with Yuna and her group, neither of them stopped to talk. Quistis didn't know what to say to Yuna anyway: reflect on how Yevon's teachings had predicted this operation's failure from the beginning, or merely thank her for sending the souls of the dead? It wasn't a conversation Quistis supposed either of them wanted to have. So they smiled and nodded to one another and passed along their way, Yuna continuing her pilgrimage, Quistis now traveling backward along hers.
When they arrived back at the ragged beachhead of Operation Mi'ihen, they found that the Al Bhed had pulled several ships in close to shore, casting it in stark whites and deep shadows. Most of the bodies had already gone. But Quistis could see the impressions in the sand where they'd fallen—deep troughs stained black with blood.
Seifer swore under his breath. "I knew it'd be bad, but this is a total massacre."
"DECIMATED," Fujin agreed.
Although he'd made a big show of being unconcerned for Rinoa, Quistis saw him slick his hair back from his forehead and swallow hard as he looked over the destruction.
The Al Bhed had set up a mobile camp along the road where they appeared to be gathering their dead in one tent and healing the living in the other, using alchemy rather than white magic. Quistis started toward the latter. A flicker of hope passed through her when she saw Selphie among the alchemists, handing out her foul tasting potions to reluctant patients.
"Heyyy!" she said with a huge grin and a wave when she saw them. "You're alive!"
"You, too," Quistis replied.
"Sure. I'm a munitions tech. I make things go boom but I'm not usually around when they do. I was safe on our ship at sea when Sin attacked."
"How about Zell and Irvine?" Quistis asked. "Did they make it?"
Selphie nodded and rolled her eyes. "They're okay. But you wouldn't know it from talking to them."
"That's good to hear," Quistis said, though in her analytical mind Irvine and Zell's survival lowered the statistical odds of finding her own friends alive. "I'm actually here looking for someone. Maybe you can help me. A woman wearing a blue duster and a man with a scar across the bridge of his nose…like Seifer's."
Selphie propped one hand on her hip. "Do you mean Rinoa and Squall?"
"Yes! Have you seen them? Are they alive?"
"Actually, they're out with Irvy and Zell…looking for survivors."
Quistis reached out and steadied herself against the medical tent's main pole as relief turned her legs liquid.
"You're not even going to believe why they're all alive," Selphie continued as she began mixing some new potion for an uneasy looking man cradling an injured arm. "I wouldn't believe it either except Squall confirmed the story, and he doesn't seem the type to just make things up."
"Whatever he told you, I'm sure it's the truth," Quistis said, not really caring to hear the story now that she knew the end.
"Well, from what I hear," Selphie went on anyway as she handed her patient the bottle, "before Sin even got here, all of the sinspawn that the Crusaders collected fused together into this massive super sinspawn. It broke out of its cage and practically destroyed the whole camp. Irvy says it broke the gun he and Zell were manning straight off its housing. Freaking five inch bolts—the thing sheared them off like cheese. So they were running for cover when they heard a scream. Rinoa. She'd been swept over the side of the cliff and, the way Irvy tells it, was hanging on there by a nail. They couldn't get to her. All the debris from the gun and unexploded ammunition was in the way. But then Squall came running by, on his way down to the beach where I guess he was stationed. So Irvy and Zell started yelling at him to save Rinoa, but—can you believe it?—he just kept on going."
"I can believe it," Seifer grumbled.
"Well, eventually he turned back and saved her. Probably saved his life, too. Everyone down on the beach where he would have been otherwise died in the attack."
Seifer nudged Quistis with his elbow. "There ya go. Told you Rinoa has a way of getting rescued. Girl's a cockroach. Bet she'd even survive an asteroid strike."
"They were both scraped up pretty good," Selphie added with a glance in Seifer's direction. "But I got them all patched up. And they both agreed to stay behind and help us out here. Rinoa said something about…an owl's duty or something. It sounded crazy, whatever it was. But any port in a storm. Right?"
"What about the super sinspawn?" Seifer asked. "It's not still in the area, is it?"
"Oh no. Of course not. Lady Yuna and Maester Seymour defeated it."
Not for the first time, Quistis wondered how Seymour and Yuna knew one another. Seymour wasn't old enough to have known her father, nor did he appear to be part of Yuna's circle of guardians (at least, he hadn't been with her on the road to Djose). Yet, somehow, they knew one another well enough to have arrived together. To fight together. They made a powerful couple, Quistis thought, both figuratively and literally.
While they waited in the medical tent, Quistis tended to some of the wounded with her magic while Fujin, Raijin, and Seifer helped with the heavy lifting involved in clean up. The Al Bhed were salvaging every part of the equipment they'd lost, loading hunks of scrap metal and bits of machinery into their deep bellied ships. At length, Squall and Rinoa returned, hauling an injured man between them. When Rinoa spotted Seifer on the beach, she released her burden onto Squall and ran across the sand to wrap her arms around Seifer's neck.
"I was so worried you didn't make it to Djose in time!" she told him.
Quistis looked away, recalling the similar reunion between Xu and Lucil and not wanting to see it again with Seifer and Rinoa.
Squall continued on into the tent where he handed off the injured man and then glanced bashfully at Quistis.
Quistis didn't care if it made him uncomfortable. She walked over to him, drew him close, and buried her face against the fur collar of his coat. For a long moment, he stood stiff in her arms. Then, slowly, a tentative hand came up to settle against her back. Gentle. Uneasy. But genuine…filled with more affection than she'd seen from him since before his mother died. It made her want to cry.
"It's good to see you," she said and released him. No lectures.
"You too," he replied before pulling out of her grip to join the others. Rinoa stood warming her hands over the flames of a wide campfire, and Squall walked over to stand next to her, looking casual to all the world except Quistis.
"I guess I've got no choice but to head back to Bevelle now," Rinoa was saying. "Try to pick up the pieces and put the Forest Owls back together. Without Zone and Watts, I don't know if…" She trailed off and dashed tears from her cheeks.
"We're heading that way. So you could travel with us if you want," Quistis offered, pity getting the best of her. "The road's not safe."
"I don't want to slow you down…"
"You won't."
A small, grateful smile tugged at the corners of Rinoa's mouth. "Okay, then. Thank you." She turned to Squall. "How about you? Are you going back to Kilika?"
He dug in the dirt with the toe of his boot and looked across the fire at Quistis. "I still want to fight Sin," he admitted.
"Wait a minute," Seifer said. "You want to come with us? After all the grief you've caused me over this, now all of the sudden you want to be a guardian?"
"LATE!"
"Yeah. That ship has passed, ya know?" Raijin added to the refrain.
"It's not up to you," Squall reminded them.
Everyone turned and looked at Quistis. Thankfully, she didn't have to respond right away since Irvine and Zell chose that moment to reappear, the both of them grease stained and tired, Irvine favoring his right leg as he walked.
"Lady Quistis!" Zell sounded surprised to see her. "I'm glad you made it out okay. But…why are you back here? Aren't you worried about being excommunicated?"
"I'm more worried about what you bozos will try to do to her than the Yevonites," Seifer said. "We heard about your exploits up at the temple. About summoners vanishing all along the road to Zanarkand."
"Wasn't us," Zell snapped and clenched his fists.
"We've been busy here," Irvine added. "It's probably either Brother or Rikku who are responsible for the other summoners."
"I'd think this whole experience would have changed your attitude," Seifer replied.
"On summoners? No way," Zell replied, defiant. "And if you'd seen what I have, you'd agree. Nobody should have to face that monster on their own, even if they don't intend to come away alive. I don't see how you can say you care about what happens to her and still be dragging her off to Zanarkand."
Unfazed, Seifer responded, "Because someone has to save all your sorry asses. Might want to show some appreciation."
"How's this for appreciation?" Irvine said and gestured out toward the boats. "It's a long walk back to Djose. So how about you all stay the night on my ship, and I'll give you a ride on a hover all the way to the Moonflow in the morning."
"I already risked my life once to keep her off your ship," Seifer pointed out. "You think I'm going to let her on it now?"
Irvine held up both hands, palms out. "It's no trick."
"I think you can trust them," Rinoa said and looped her arm through Seifer's. "I've gotten to know them a bit. And I just don't see them breaking their word on this. Plus, they're not going to try anything with both you and Squall around."
Again, all eyes turned to Quistis. A lifetime spent mostly in the company of priests and prayer hadn't prepared her to navigate this social minefield, so she hesitated, wracking her mind for some solution that would please everyone. "I think," she finally started, "we will make our own camp but take you up on the ride." Give Seifer the control he craved, but still make up the time they'd lost to Operation Mi'ihen.
Everyone agreed, and Seifer nominated himself to pick out a campsite. He walked a long way through the dark, away from the lights of the Al Bhed ships and toward the rising moon, before he felt satisfied. "Someone should take a watch," he said as Raijin started a fire. "I already got some sleep in Djose. So I'll go first."
"I'll take the second," Squall said.
Quistis had rested up at the temple, so she sat awake with Seifer for some time, warming her toes by the fire while everyone else made themselves comfortable and drifted off. Behind them, back along the beach, the pace of work at the Al Bhed camp slowed to a crawl as they too settled in for the night.
"I'm surprised you're taking them up on the hover offer," Seifer said to her. He leaned back on his elbows, facing out away from the fire so that he was looking right at her, the shadows hiding nuance in his expression.
"Why?"
"The whole 'no machina' clause."
"Oh…" She didn't want to admit that Maesters Kinoc and Seymour had made that particular rule seem somewhat less hard and fast to her. "It's just a hover," she finally said. "Probably not much different than a boat. And that's always been acceptable."
"Seems to me that Yevon doesn't mind if his followers bend the rules, so long as they're part of the ruling class," Seifer replied.
"You know, all this time that I've been traveling with you…I haven't been able to work out whether you're a believer or not," Quistis said and leaned in close so that she could see him better. "You've been dreaming about being a guardian for years, yet you don't seem to have much respect for priests or maesters."
"It's hard to respect a bunch of hypocrites. People like Seymour and Kinoc who stand there, representing Yevon, and send people to their deaths like that. Then they have the balls to excommunicate all the people who survive? I bet they're both already back in Bevelle, reporting that the damned Forest Owls have been taken care of and so have those pesky Crusaders. They've had power too long and I don't trust them."
"People will always be fallible. Sometimes it's the idea you have to believe in, not the people preaching it," Quistis replied. "I guess I just don't understand how you can embrace this quest without a whole lot of faith."
"I have faith. Just not in Yevon."
"What else is there?" Quistis asked. Not much else in Spira offered hope.
"I have faith in myself."
Quistis laughed. "Well, that's always been obvious."
"And in you," he added. "Me wanting to be a guardian? That has a whole lot more to do with wanting to be in the thick of battle, of wanting to devote my life and my sword to someone who…" Here he paused and collected himself. "You and me, we can defeat Sin. I believe that."
They sat and stared at each other while Quistis digested what he'd said, the crackling fire and Raijin's soft snoring the only thing breaking up the silence. She didn't know if she admired the purity of his motives, the simplicity of his confidence, or if she pitied the fragility of his worldview. If she died facing Sin, what would happen to him? She feared that without the idea he had of himself as a hero, as Spira's savior, the rest of him might crumble.
"Go to sleep, Summoner," he told her and broke eye contact. She got the impression he knew that she was attempting to crawl inside his skull and objected to having her there. "I can't keep a proper eye out for the Al Bhed with you sitting here yammering at me."
This time, she did as he asked.
0 0 0
Quistis woke the next morning to Squall's gentle nudging. He didn't exchange any pleasantries with her, just moved on to the next sleeping bundle—Rinoa, who lay curled in the fetal position with her face toward the fire. Seifer sat cross-legged on the other side of her, heating a frying pan over the flames to cook breakfast in. He didn't object when Squall bent down and helped. Quistis hadn't voiced her decision to allow Squall to join her pilgrimage, but it appeared everyone implicitly understood what she wanted.
They ate, Rinoa complimenting Seifer on his cooking though in fact he had burned everything, then put out and buried their fire.
When they arrived back at the Al Bhed camp, two huge pieces of machina with mounted fans had been set up along the road. The hovers, Quistis supposed. She paused to inspect one.
"It's a beaut', huh?" Zell said as he walked up. He reached out and patted it, the metal rivets on his gloves making a clanging sound against the vehicle's struts. "I rebuilt this one from the ground up. It got caught in a sandstorm back on Bikanel and everyone wanted to scrap it. But I knew it could be salvaged."
"So, we're all going to be trusting our lives to your craftsmanship?" Seifer said.
Zell scowled. "That's right. You got a problem with that?"
"I'm sure it will be fine," Squall said, deadpan.
Although she would have been ashamed to admit it to her Yevonite mentors back home, Quistis felt excited about the upcoming ride. Chocobos has been even more fun than she'd imagined, and these things probably went twice as fast. She was glad she'd get to experience this before she died.
"Morning, all!" Selphie said as she walked up and climbed into the driver's seat of the other hover. "All aboard!" She yelled, pumping one fist in the air, and then broke into song in her native Al Bhed: "Rujan rujaaaaaan…dyga sa yfyoooooo!"
"Selph…come on," Zell complained. "Do you have to sing that every single time? Hasn't hover-riding gotten old by now?"
"Yes and no," she replied, then launched into another verse that seemed not much different than the first.
When Irvine arrived, they all climbed aboard the two hovers. The engines, when they started, startled Quistis who shrank away from the noisy hum and the terrifying, spinning fan blades. When the hover first started moving, seeming to slide unnaturally across an invisible cushion between the sleds and the ground, she gripped the sides of her seat and held her breath.
The hovers turned out to not be twice as fast as a chocobo like she'd thought. Rather, they sped along at three or four times the speed. The wind buffeted Quistis's face, ripping tendrils loose from the fishtail she'd pinned her hair up in. The ocean whipped by on their right and the mushroom rock cliffs on their left. In no time, they passed Djose, angling back inland along the road to the Moonflow. Once Quistis's stomach settled and she relaxed back into her seat, the joy—the near miraculous feat—of moving across the ground at such a breathtaking pace took over. She grinned until her teeth felt dry. And she watched the landscape change from barren to grassy to woodsy in what felt like a handful of seconds. Spira looked different this way. Smaller. More connected. She felt a rush of affection for the world she called home.
"Your stop's just up ahead!" Selphie called back over the noise of the engine.
"Already?" Quistis tried, not vey successfully, to hide her disappointment.
They stopped the hovers right as the road narrowed to pass through a dense copse of trees and throttled the engines down to a low, knocking hum. Quistis's legs felt weak as she hopped down to the ground. Behind her, on the second hover, she heard Rinoa laughing and turned to find her sitting on the ground, her eyes squeezed shut as she giggled. Raijin stopped to offer his hand and help her up.
"Makes you consider becoming an Al Bhed, don't it?" Zell said, full of pride in his people and his craftsmanship.
"It's too bad you can't take me all the way to Bevelle," Rinoa replied. "I'd love to show up at my dad's house on one of these."
"You should visit Bikanel sometime," Irvine told her. "This is just the beginning of what we've got. And I'd be happy to show you a good time." He winked. "Plenty of fun rides to be had in al Al Bhed camp."
Selphie smacked the back of his head.
They had to get back to their camp, so the three Al Bhed didn't waste any time in turning their hovers around and heading back down the road. Quistis and her group continued on, over a small rise. Beyond spread the Moonflow. Quistis had heard about this place and even seen a few paintings of it. But they hadn't prepared her for the reality. The river, which bisected Spira into northern and southern halves, was so wide that she could barely make out the other side, just a thin, green line on the horizon. According to legend, the depths of the swift moving water hid the remains of a great machina city that had once been built on top of several massive bridges. But the city had eventually outgrown the bridges' ability to support it, and the entire thing crashed into the water below.
The sense of something tragic having happened here, and of ghosts continuing to linger, was enhanced by the moonlillies which clogged the river's marshy banks. The blossoms, which opened at dusk, attracted hoards of pyreflies. Many streamed around the closed buds even now, waiting.
Groups of merchants, monkeys, and travelers crowded this popular shore. The little blue hypello, in particular, called the Moonflow home. One approached Quistis.
"Hello? Game of cardsh?" it slurred. The little creature held out a collection of playing cards in its webbed hand. "The rulesh here are shame and one?"
Quistis, who had never heard of Triple Triad until she'd seen Raijin and Fujin playing one another, had managed to catch onto the rules quickly and amassed her own card collection by playing the two along the road whenever significant downtime gave them the opportunity. So this random offer intrigued her. She fished out her deck.
"Sure. I'll play a game with you."
She sat down with the hypello, who with the lilt of a question introduced itself as The Card Queen, while the others set about replenishing their supplies. They'd need even more now with the addition of two more people to the quest. Raijin and Fujin stayed with her to watch the game. The hypello won the first and pronounced that it (she?) would spread the rule of "shame" throughout the Moonflow. Quistis won the second round and claimed a new card. A good one, which made Raijin and Fujin ooh and ahh. So she kept playing until the others returned.
The only way across the Moonflow and into the north was by shoopuf. The huge, gray-green creature stood armpit deep in the water, a little basket shaped litter strapped to its back. And another hypello—indistinguishable to Quistis from the Card Queen she'd just met—stood selling tickets for the ride across.
"Ride the shoopuf?" he called out over and over again.
"They don't seem too bright, do they?" Seifer said.
Rinoa frowned at him. "Don't be so judgmental."
The Card Queen had played a cunning round of games, more-so than Fujin or Raijin. So Quistis was willing to cut this species some slack as, quite literally, fish out of water. She climbed the steps up the platform to the eager Hypello and said, "We'd like to cross. How much for six people?"
Seifer paid him, and the Hypello stuffed their Gil into the pocket of his orange overalls before yelling, "All aboard!" and energetically turning a crank to lower a platform that would carry them up to the shoopuf's back. It looked rickety and old and probably hadn't been replaced or properly maintained in decades. When all six of them piled aboard, the lift creaked and groaned. And the little Hypello groaned and panted as he turned the crank to lift them. The water fell away underneath the platform as it lurched upward.
The smell of the shoopuf hit Quistis before they even boarded—a peculiar, dank, animal smell somewhere between that of a goat and a fish. The beast turned its head and looked over its shoulder at her as she leapt the short distance between the platform and the litter. Quistis settled onto the first available seat and clasped her hands primly on top of her knees. Squall sat across from her and looked unimpressed, even when the shoopuf turned away from shore and, in great lumbering steps, started out into the deep river current.
The ride went quickly. Quistis ate an apple which Raijin handed her from his pack, then tossed the core down into the water. A pleasant breeze blew across her face and the litter's awning blocked out the worst of the sun. She found the whole ride pleasant and relaxing. Only Rinoa seemed to enjoy the trip as much as Quistis. She leaned over the side, the wind blowing in her loose hair and pointed when a pair of ducks flew by.
On the other side of the Moonflow, another Hypello raised a platform and lowered them back to the ground.
Not as many merchants clogged the northern shore, but more monkeys sat perched overhead in tree branches, their long tails swinging idly in the early afternoon heat. The hard packed dirt road took them along the water for some distance.
"Hey. Aren't those some more Al Bhed?" Raijin said and pointed as the road curved inland again. Further down the riverbank, away from the road, Quistis could just make out a small group of people maneuvering a strange looking piece of machina into the water. A girl in a pastel body suit with blonde hair appeared to be directing the others, her arms waving as she jumped up and down and yelled.
"What do you suppose they're up to?" Rinoa asked.
"Who cares?" Squall said.
"For once, I agree," Seifer replied. "So long as it has nothing to do with us, I can't bring myself to give a shit."
"What if it's part of some plot to capture other summoners?" Rinoa asked.
Seifer shrugged and continued on with Squall, the both of them utterly unconcerned with other people's problems. It amused Quistis to see them do something in tandem—a rare moment of agreement between the two rivals who weren't as different as they liked to pretend. The rest of the group trailed behind them into the thick woods that separated the edges of the Moonflow from the great city of Guadosalam— their next stop. A few other travelers milled about along the road, all of them in high spirits at seeing summoner and her guardians.
One traveler, however, spotted them and immediately turned around to walk back the way he had come.
Rinoa slowed, her eyes squinted. "I think I recognize him…" she murmured.
The man looked middle aged and unremarkable with dark hair graying at the temples. He wore a long, black tunic with white embroidery that reminded Quistis of something Cid Kramer had been fond of wearing when she'd been younger.
"I've got it!" Rinoa said and snapped her fingers. "Vinzer Deling! He used to be a city administrator in Bevelle. He was the church's rebellion crusher. Came down hard on the Owls more than once. But…he's supposed to be dead. There was an incident. Something in the bottom levels of the temple, my dad said."
Seifer cupped his hand to his mouth and shouted, "Hey! Deling!"
The man glanced over his shoulder.
"Guess your dad didn't tell you the whole truth," Seifer said.
Without waiting to think the situation over, Rinoa broke into a jog, yelling, "Wait!"
Deling turned and faced her rather than run way. His abrupt about-face unsettled Quistis.
"Stay away from me, young lady," he said, the command laced with a threat clear enough to stop Rinoa in her tracks.
"I can't believe you've been here all this time," Rinoa said and affixed her weapon, a projectile pinwheel similar to Fujin's, to the mount on her wrist. She pointed it at Deling. "To think, I actually believed my dad when he told me you were dead. That you'd paid some price for what you did to the Forest Owls."
Quistis and the rest of the group caught up to Rinoa and stood behind her, not sure yet whether to get involved in this dispute.
"The Forest Owls? You bunch of amateurs are still around?" Deling said.
"Ama-teurs?"
Something ugly bubbled across Deling's expression and he bent over to grab his knees, seeming in pain. "Are you here to get revenge, young LADY?" he asked and lurched forward a step. "Why doN'T you teLL mE…?"
With an awkward stagger, like a poorly articulated marionette, Deling lunged at Rinoa, his hands out, but she ducked under his grasp and Squall stepped into her place. The wet, solid sound of Squall's gloved fist connecting with Deling's face made Quistis flinch. Deling fell over with the force of the blow and landed on his back in a cloud of pyreflies.
"He's unsent!" Quistis yelled and drew her whip.
The pyreflies swarmed thick around him, and the arm that stuck up out of them again was no longer human. Deling, dissolved into his unholy, unsent state, clawed his way back to his feet, his skin white and stretched thin over lumpy deformities that fused his torso to his left arm and leg. His internal organs glowed alternately red and blue and clung to the bottom of his ribs in a clear, sickening sack.
"Get back!" Squall barked and shoved Rinoa behind him.
"Subdue him while I perform a sending," Quistis commanded.
Like most long unsent, Deling's new form cruelly mimicked the sins he'd committed in life when he'd held his boot heel to the throat of the resistance in Bevelle. His huge, clawed hand swatted Seifer to the ground, at the same time silencing him with an evil spell. Squall, Raijin, and Fujin launched at him next and he beat them back, too, inflicting them with blindness, pain, and confusion.
"I woN'T dIE," he howled. "You shOULd haVE jUST let mE BE!"
Seifer said something which Quistis supposed would have been snarky had he been able to actually speak. Beside him, Squall reached into his pocket and pulled out a bottle of blue potion which Quistis thought he must have bought from the Al Bhed the day before. Blind as he was, he reached out until the back of his hand connected with Seifer.
Seifer chucked it at Deling's chest and the bottle burst, spraying alchemic potion across his skin. Deling hissed and swatted at it.
Whip swinging in an arc above her head, Quistis pirouetted and turned on her toe. As her companions gained the upper-hand, she could feel her grip tightening on Deling's soul. Her back bent with the power of the sending and she turned again, her whip flaring out beside her. Pyreflies rose from Deling's body and streamed past her. She saw them in blinking swirls as she danced.
From deep in the ether, her aeons joined her.
Her vision blurred until she couldn't see the woods or Seifer or Squall anymore, just Deling as he had been—a man—surrounded by steaks of fire and lightning and a cloudy gloom of fear. Fear of crossing over. Fear of punishment on the other side.
So she soothed him: Nothing to fear here. And she parted the veil between Spira and the Farplane.
Distantly, she felt her body moving through the steps of the sending. But her inner eye paused to cast its own long glance at the other side. For most of her life, she'd known her fate, to die in Zanarkand while calling forth the final summon, and now for the first time, she glimpsed death and sensed it growing near. She'd pass this way soon, she knew. And she felt the shocking pain of sadness and regret at that thought as she forced Deling across the chasm, pushing him to continue his long overdue journey.
Reality came back to her in an instant and she found herself in the middle of a turn, which she faltered on and stumbled. Out of breath, she clutched her chest and dropped her whip. Raijin grabbed her by the arm and held her up long enough for her to gather her wits again.
It took Quistis several long minutes to remedy all of the ailments Deling had managed to inflict upon her group. Fujin, who had been cursed with confusion, proved especially difficult, as she backed up against a tree and struck out at her friends, her hands shaking with terror.
"About damn time!" Seifer yelled when she finally un-silenced him. Immediately, he turned to Rinoa. "Way to drag us into trouble on our first day out! What were you thinking, going up to a guy you knew very well was dead and challenging him like that?"
"You know what he did to the Owls."
"The Owls are dead," he shouted, the cruel remark drawing a shocked gasp from Rinoa. "The rebellion is over," he continued. "There are more important things going on here than Bevelle and your daddy issues. So grow the hell up. Okay?"
Rather than argue, she crossed her arms and turned her back on him.
"She couldn't have known that would happen," Squall said, shocking everyone by coming to Rinoa's defense.
"This isn't a vacation. It's a pilgrimage," Seifer replied. "There's no room for mistakes here."
Sensing that her new role as peacemaker would continue so long as Rinoa and Squall remained in the group, Quistis decided to interject. She stepped in between the two men. "Only a summoner could have sent that monster on his way," she pointed out. "So we had a duty to do here, regardless. Now let's put it behind us and move on."
Tempers continued to simmer as they continued up the Moonflow road. Even Rinoa remained subdued. Quistis walked beside her, wanting to apologize but without any idea what for. So she kept quiet.
Guadosalam rose suddenly out of the forest in front of them—or, rather, the outer edifice of the city did. It had been built underground, into a sloping hillside that bridged the gap between the woody banks of the Moonflow and the barren, storm swept expanse of the Thunder Plains. A sacred tree spanned the divide and served as the city's roof, it's roots allowed to grow around the Guado's homes below. A great plaza paved with jade marked the southern entrance. Quistis looked down at the unusual mineral with interest as she walked.
Down a short, dark tunnel, she emerged into the city proper, a curious mixture of rock and vine and brightly painted houses nestled in amongst woody growths, the whole aesthetic perfectly suited to the Guado who shared their city's twisted, lanky, arboreal quality.
"We'll stay the night here," she announced. "It's going to take several days to cross the Thunder Plains so we might as well rest up."
Her disgruntled group of guardians grumbled in response.
Maybe while they were here, she thought, they could work out some of these personal grievances, too. The Guado, after all, had long been the representatives of peace all across Spira, and Guadosalam had two major things going for it that she thought might help put some of Seifer and Squall's demons to rest: an entrance to the Farplane which had for eons provided Spirans with closure, and a world wide reputation for excellent local liquors.
In their case, she thought both might come in handy.