A/N: There are some violations of FFX canon in this chapter that I thought long and hard about including and in the end settled with what I felt better served the story. Nothing major, so I'm claiming artistic license on this one.
Chapter 6: Guadosalam
Rarely did Seifer hesitate to rush into anything (a room, a battle, a quest…), but the entrance to the Farplane in Guadosalam gave him pause. He stood at the base of the stone steps leading up to the watery barrier separating one world from the next and watched as Squall, Raijin, and Rinoa vanished through. Quistis had stayed behind at the travel agency with Fujin, the both of them claiming that they had no interest in visiting this sacred place. Honestly, Seifer didn't have much either. But Quistis had insisted that he go and he hadn't been able to fight the notion without either looking cowardly or admitting to feelings he didn't want to acknowledge or discuss.
So here he stood.
Slowly, he climbed the steps.
He knew that whatever he saw on the other side would only be an illusion created by the pyreflies which here possessed the cruel trick of mimicking the dead. Perhaps it gave comfort to those weak of mind and spirit. Seifer, on the other hand, refused to be touched.
Through the barrier, he found himself standing on a high, round plateau overlooking the Farplane below: a verdant, flower-filled glen bordered on all sides by sparkling lagoons and noisy waterfalls. The air moved in unnatural, pulsing waves. Like a heartbeat.
At the edge, Rinoa stood looking up at the floating figures of Zone and Watts. She spoke to them only for a few short moments before ducking her head into her hands to cry.
Not far from her, Squall was talking to his own pyrefly induced phantom, his a gentle looking lady in dark slacks and a canary yellow sweater. His mother, Seifer figured; they had the same pale face, dark hair, and wide blue eyes.
Unlike the other two, no one had appeared in front of Raijin. Still, he waited expectantly. Seifer wondered who for? He hadn't known Raijin before meeting him in the blitzball pool a scant few years ago and didn't know much about his childhood or his family. It struck an odd, sad chord for Seifer to see his friend with his big, dumb hands folded in front of him, full of religious piety and awe while he waited for the universe to send him the slightest shred of reassurance that everyone he'd lost was now okay.
Disgusted, angry with himself that he'd even bothered to come here, Seifer turned on his heel to leave until a voice he hadn't heard in well over a decade froze the blood in his veins.
"Hey there, little man. Aren't you going to stop and see me? I've been waiting for you."
Seifer didn't turn around right away. The sweet voice filled him with visceral dread as he recalled the very last time he'd heard it—the long, hot summer when he'd been five. It felt now like no time had passed at all. Vividly, he remembered the sounds, the smells, and his sense of utter helplessness as his mother died. Not drowned by Sin. But slowly, wasting away to a brutal illness that took everything from her before it finally released its grip. In the final days, it had seemed like her spirit had already moved on; she spent all of her time talking to the ghosts of her parents. When she died, Seifer's father broke the news by saying that she'd gone to "a better place." He'd seemed relieved that the ordeal was finally over.
Would she look the same here as she had when she died? Wasted and skeletal? The idea of seeing her that way again terrified Seifer enough to make him consider running for the exit. But he mustered up his courage and turned to face her.
"That's my brave boy," she said.
She looked like she had when he'd been a toddler: long, yellow-blonde hair pulled back into a thick plait, her pretty face smiling, full-cheeked and radiant.
"It's been a long time." She motioned him toward her. "I've missed you."
Distrusting this vision, Seifer didn't say anything though he did take what felt like an involuntary step forward.
"How are you?" she asked. "How is your father?"
Seifer's father still lived in Luca, though the two of them hadn't spoken in years. They had never been close and after his mother's death their relationship had deteriorated even further—the both of them too alike in temperament to get along without an intermediary. The years of shouting, name calling, and brawls eventually drove Seifer to play blitzball. It was one of the only things an undisciplined, aggressive young man could excel at, and it gave him enough income to leave home and never return.
"Your father comes to see me sometimes," his mother said with a dumb grin.
Seifer doubted that (his father wasn't exactly the sentimental type), but he admired the pyreflies' ability to mimic the exact face she'd made so often in life when speaking about the man she'd married. He didn't realize they could make something so life-like.
"What's the matter?" she asked.
"I guess I'm surprised to see you here," he told her.
"Why?"
"Because you're half Al Bhed."
However this place worked, he'd held onto the hope walking in that perhaps his mother's heritage (and to some extent his own) might exclude them from the pyreflies' repertoire.
She laughed. "You know I was always a believer."
Even as a kid, he'd been sharply aware of her faith. She'd spent hours nestled in bed with him, reading stories about High Summoners and guardians of old. They'd spent many nights whispering in the dark about how Seifer might one day grow up to be as noble and bold as Lord Zahon, Yunalesca's trusted guardian and lover who had helped her usher in Spira's very first calm. Still, even with her unassailable devotion to the teachings of Yevon, many of the faithful in Luca rejected her as a half-breed. The distinct, swirled green eyes she'd inherited from her father made her lineage impossible to hide.
With his own one fourth Al Bhed blood, Seifer still thought he looked all too much like one. He had his mother's color and his father's build.
"Yevon is not spiteful. All souls who believe are welcome here," his mother told him.
"You're not real."
She quirked her head. "Where did you come by all of this doubt?"
The disappointment in her voice pained him. To assuage it, he told her, "I'm a guardian now."
His news quite literally lit her up. "Really? I knew you'd do great things! You know, I never once worried about you. Not even at the end. I always knew that you'd do okay for yourself."
He hadn't always felt so sure. With his mother gone, he'd found little to hold on to. And the memory of her weeks of misery haunted him even now. At one point, a cousin on his mother's (fully human) side had come to Luca to pray over her sickbed. The woman had married a maester—a guado, as it happened, since apparently disregard for social decorum ran in the family—but it had done no good. Yevon didn't help. And Seifer's mother hadn't even acknowledged her cousin's presence. Instead, she'd continued to converse in Al Bhed with the imaginary figment of her father.
And just like then, he reminded himself, this ghost wasn't real. Standing here speaking to it wasn't healthy.
I shouldn't have come here, he thought. Regardless of what Quistis thought about him, he should have stayed behind at the travel agency.
"I have to go," he told the form of his mother. "You won't be seeing me here again."
"Don't let go of your dream," she told him, already fading. "Be brave for me."
Heart aching at those parting words, the very same she'd said to him at five years old, he walked away, back through the barrier and down the stone steps. When his heartbeat finally stopped thundering in his ears like a storm, he found himself back in downtown Guadosalam.
Dazed, he arrived back at the travel agency only to find their room empty. The Guado at the desk told him that Quistis and Fujin had left some time ago to "refresh their spirits" in a place up the road called NORG's. It didn't take long to find, highlighted as it was with a huge chalk drawn sign out front that featured a figure which looked like a cross between a Guado and an amorphous blob. A bar, he realized with surprise.
Perfect.
This was just the kind of spiritual refreshment he needed.
0 0 0
Quistis lifted her drink to the light and peered through the glass at the blue colored liquid inside before taking a sip. Just as the bartender promised, it tasted sweet and fruity…nothing like the searing mixture she'd initially ordered, which now sat in front of Fujin. The drink could probably strip paint, Quistis thought. Yet Fujin swallowed gulp after gulp without so much as a wince. They sat side by side on stools at NORG's Bar, empty at the moment except for them and the titular owner—a huge Guado with at least four chins. He barely fit in the tight space behind the bar. Behind him, a painted sign proclaimed the area "NORG's Pod."
The bar itself was bigger inside than it appeared from without. Nice, too, with a piano, plenty of seating, heavy curtains on the walls to absorb noise, and a kitchen that served hearty home cooking. Quistis could see the top of the cook's head from where she sat as he pan fried the sandwich she'd ordered.
"So, how long have you known Seifer?" she asked Fujin, trying to make small talk.
The other woman didn't say anything. Just sipped her drink.
"You two seem close," Quistis continued. "The fact that you and Raijin are helping him achieve his dream of becoming a guardian is really admirable. It shows a lot of loyalty."
Certainly more, anyway, than Quistis had grown to expect from her own friends. She frowned into her drink, took a sip, and washed it around in her mouth before swallowing.
The cook brought out her sandwich and at the same time the front door opened. Seifer walked in, looking stormier than usual. At least he'd provide some conversation, Quistis thought, with a frown in Fujin's direction.
"You look like you just got in a fight," she told him as he pulled out the stool next to her, sat down, and ordered a drink of his own.
"Shows what you know," he replied. "This is the face of someone fresh from a spiritual experience."
"It was that good, huh?"
"Oh yeah. Always nice to aggravate old wounds."
Quistis wondered who he had seen, and whether it had been someone that he'd expected. Her own cowardly reason for staying behind revolved around the fact that she didn't know whether she could bear seeing Cid or Edea Kramer. Ever since learning of the attack on Kilika, she'd clung to the hope that they'd survived. And if she had to let that go, she feared grief would overtake her.
"Is everyone else still visiting the Farplane?" she asked.
"I don't know and I don't care." He glanced at her plate and her glass. "What in the world are you drinking? It looks like cough syrup."
"It's called a Blue Ronso. Want a sip?" She nudged it toward him. "It's really good. Tastes kind of like black raspberries."
"No thanks."
"Okay. Your loss." She started in on her sandwich while he brooded next to her, obviously mulling over whatever he'd seen on the Farplane. Though she burned to ask him about it, Quistis didn't pry. Mostly because she didn't think he would tell her about his experience anyway. She sat licking crumbs from her fingers when the rest of the group filtered into the little bar—Raijin first, followed shortly thereafter by Squall and Rinoa who (of course) made their entrance together.
Quistis didn't bother to hide her ugly expression at seeing the two of them side by side.
"Please don't tell me I'm going to have to put up with this shit all the way to Zanarkand," Seifer said to her. "It's bad enough that you're letting that asshole come along after everything that he did to you, let alone to spend what you have left of your life pining after him."
"I'm not pining."
"Yeah, right."
"Besides, he didn't do anything to me," she added.
"He abandoned you," Seifer said. "You have a mission, and he thought he had a better one. It was only once his precious Operation Mi'ihen failed that he started to come around to this whole Final Summoning business."
She frowned, knowing that Seifer had a point. Still, having Squall close at hand meant something to her. And not just as a woman in love. She knew that he would carry word of her fate back to her loved ones. And he reminded her of home. She wanted to feel that connection in the last moments of her life.
"Gosh, this place is adorable," Rinoa was saying as she sat down on the other side of Seifer. "It reminds me of a place where the Owls used to meet in Bevelle. Do you remember it?"
Seifer took a long drink before replying. "Nope."
"Really? It had a back door that led to an alley behind Maester Kinoc's house and a big painting of a coeurl on the back wall. Ringing any bells?" She crossed her arms and leaned them against the bar. "Guess not. Oh well."
At length, the piano drew Rinoa's rambling attention.
"I saw Zone and Watts, you know," she announced. "It caught me off guard. I was expecting to see my mom…to let her know that I'm okay without her. I think she always worried that there'd be problems between me and my dad if something ever happened to her. Which…there are, obviously…but I've never doubted that he loved her. She's the one thing that brings us together. She played the piano. Sang, too. One of her songs even became famous after she died."
Looking wistful, Rinoa walked over to the instrument and sat down on the bench, her fingers brushing across the keys. It took her a few chords before she found the right place to start, and then she began to play, the song delicate and pretty—just like her.
As if she could be any more perfect.
Quistis quickly finished up her Blue Ronso.
"I never sang my songs on the stage on my own," Rinoa began, her voice soft and high. "I never said my words wishing they would be heard. I saw you smiling at me. Was it real or just my fantasy? You'd always be there in the corner of this tiny little bar…"
The evening's patrons flowed into NORG's as Rinoa continued, seeming to lose herself in the song. She held everyone in thrall except for Seifer who scoffed, unimpressed.
"I'm so sick of this song," he grumbled. "Used to hear it all the damn time in Bevelle. Seemed like every time I turned around, someone was playing 'Eyes on Me.' Sappy piece of shit just about gives me hives. From what I hear, Rinoa's mom Julia wrote it while she was working at some pub. And I'm pretty sure it's not about Maester Caraway."
Regardless of her mother's intent, it was perfectly clear to Quistis who Rinoa was singing about. Squall sat with his head down, not acknowledging the performance in his honor.
By the time Rinoa finished, a sizable crowd of road weary pilgrims had filled the bar. Everyone applauded. NORG's praise threatened to drown out them all. His huge hands came together with deafening enthusiasm, and he jiggled with delight as he laughed, the sound erupting from his mountain of flesh as a raucous, "BRU-SHU-SHU!"
Seifer finished his drink and spun around on his barstool while behind him Rinoa blushed and bowed.
"Hey, Pubes," he shouted over NORG's continued applause. "You up for a friendly competition?"
Squall agreed and Quistis found herself suddenly alone at the bar as her entire group of guardians got up and relocated without her. When Rinoa managed to extract herself from the piano, all flushed and flattered, she took Fujin's recently vacated spot.
"Boy, that was embarrassing," she said. "My mom taught me to play. But I've never performed."
"You did a good job," Quistis told her, genuinely impressed. "I don't have any musical talent at all. You're lucky to have such a lovely voice. It seems like it would be nice to have that sort of emotional outlet."
"It can be. Speaking of emotional outlets…" She gestured to the fierce game of darts now unfolding between Seifer and Squall. "How long do you think it will be before that gets ugly?"
"Oh...I'm sure it won't be long before someone will get stabbed with a dart," Quistis replied dryly.
"I was hoping to get a chance to sit and talk with Squall a bit tonight. I haven't even gotten to thank him properly for saving my life during Operation Mi'ihen."
"He doesn't expect a thank you," Quistis advised. "He did it because he cares about you."
A pleased smile crossed Rinoa's face. "You think so?"
"Let me put it this way…I've known him his entire life. We grew up together. Went to the same school. His mom used to babysit me. And I'm not sure he'd have done the same thing for me as he did for you."
For too many years, Quistis had held onto to the merest hints of affection, saving space in her life and her pilgrimage for a man who deep in his heart wanted neither. Now that he'd been excommunicated and his life as a Crusader lay in ruins, he'd finally come to her. And she'd accepted him out of pity and for all the reasons she'd given Seifer earlier. But she still felt slighted.
"That's ridiculous," Rinoa said, her eyebrows drawing together. "Squall loves you."
"He told you that?"
"He didn't have to. It's obvious."
Quistis shook her head.
"I know it probably seems like he chose the Crusaders over you, but he didn't," Rinoa continued. "He's been trying to protect you."
"Protect me?" Quistis repeated, dubious.
"Yes. You're like a sister to him."
The word sister made Quistis's stomach turn over.
"Think about it," Rinoa said. "You're a summoner. Even if you beat sin, you'll still die. The Crusaders and Operation Mi'ihen offered him another way. One where he could protect you…get rid of Sin forever so that you'd never have to perform a Final Summoning. He's been on your side this whole time. Maybe not the way you wanted him to be. But that's not because he doesn't care."
She smiled reassuringly, as if that was exactly what Quistis had wanted to hear.
"You should talk to him about it," Rinoa suggested.
Easier said than done. Even with a slight buzz, Quistis didn't fancy the idea of cornering Squall to discuss her feelings—especially when her feelings were now so mixed. He thought of her as a sister? The possibility hadn't even occurred to her and she didn't know how to process it.
"I could say some of the same things to you about Seifer, you know," Rinoa said. She sipped a drink NORG delivered to her: pink with a cherry floating inside.
"What do you mean?"
"I thought I was in love with him in Bevelle. He has this confidence that made me feel like I could take on the world. But then I woke up one day and he was gone. He walked out of my life forever without a a word. And it seems like he never looked back."
"He's only here with me because he thinks I can make him famous," Quistis replied.
"Are you sure? Being a guardian is his dream. But he's got a pretty romantic sense of what that means." She smiled and leaned close. "He could have picked anyone. Why do you suppose he picked you?"
Serendipity. She'd been in the right place at the right time with the right amount of sad desperation.
"REFILL?" NORG asked, noticing Quistis's empty glass. She knew she'd regret it later, but she'd taken a thick stack of Gil from Seifer's pack before leaving the travel agency. She pushed a note and her glass across the bar into the Guado's huge hand. "BRU-SHU-SHU," he chuckled and refreshed her glass.
"Let's go join the game," she suggested. Blue Ronso in hand, she started across the now noisy and crowded bar toward Seifer and Squall. "I'll play the winner," she shouted.
"That'd be me, of course," Seifer replied with a cocksure grin.
Squall merely rolled his eyes and handed Quistis his darts. "I'm all played out," he said. "Go ahead."
"I think that's called quitting," Seifer sneered at him.
"Whatever." Squall took a seat to watch and Rinoa floated over to sit down next to him. Quistis had to admit, the girl was determined and admirably unfazed by Squall's frostiness.
"Tch…loser," Seifer grumbled, then nudged Quistis. "Alright then. Are you going to go, or just stand there?"
The game looked simple. But Quistis's first dart missed by a wide margin, hitting the wall. She winced and nearly spilled her drink.
"How many of those have you had?" Seifer asked, sounding amused at her poor aim.
"Not that many," she snapped.
"A lightweight. Huh?"
"I'm not drunk."
He laughed. "You just suck, then? I didn't think it was possible, but you're even worse than Squall."
"Looked from where I was sitting like he beat you every game," she replied, then readied her second shot. With this one, she did marginally better, landing her dart on the board, about halfway between the edge and the bull's-eye. Her third did even better, clipping the inner circle. A good shot, considering her lack of experience (and apparent intoxication).
With an easy confidence, Seifer reached around to take the Blue Ronso from her, lifting it from her fingers. He took a swig and licked his lips (it left his tongue a little blue, she noticed), then he proceeded to fire all three of his darts right into the middle of the target, his aim if anything improved by the addition of alcohol. "I win."
Fujin and Raijin cheered.
"Aren't you guys supposed to be my posse now?" Quistis asked, hands on her hips.
"Uh…sorry." Raijin flushed. "Force of habit, ya know?"
Next game, they both still cheered for Seifer.
She was about to bow out and allow Squall back into the game, but when she turned to hand him the darts, he was gone. Rinoa, too. It took her a moment to locate them and when she did, she had to blink hard to be certain she wasn't imagining things. One of the other bar patrons had taken Rinoa's place at the piano and sat banging out upbeat melodies that had the more heavily intoxicated and exhibitionist people up dancing—Rinoa and Squall (inexplicably) among them. They stumbled into one another and with a huff of frustration, Squall moved to walk away, but Rinoa grabbed his hand and hauled him back to start over.
Never in her entire life had Quistis seen Squall so much as bob his head to music. It baffled her to see him out in public dancing with a girl. As he started to relax, he even became passably good at it, swinging her out and drawing her back in.
"You've gotta stop doing this to yourself," Seifer said and snatched the darts out of her hand. He walked over and jammed all of them into the board, then turned back around to face her. "He doesn't deserve this kind of blind affection. It's not healthy. And Yevon knows, being lectured about healthy relationships by me is one hell of a condemnation. Let it go, Summoner. Forget him. You've got me. And Raij, and Fuj. That's more than enough."
She sighed and leaned against a nearby table. "I'm starting to wonder if what I feel for Squall is some kind of sisterly affection that I've just misunderstood…"
He rolled his eyes. "If I were you, I'd kick his sorry ass to the curb. I'd never let him walk all over me, and I sure as shit wouldn't think it was my fault. If you keep making excuses for him, you're going to die without ever opening your eyes and realizing that you're fucking better than him. And that just makes me sick."
Quistis sighed. "How about we play a different game?" she suggested. Something she could win, this time. She was getting tired of losing.
"Why don't we dance?" Seifer said and offered her his hand.
"I'd rather not."
"Because it's me asking? Or—"
"Because I don't know how. Not like this," she replied, interrupting him. For her, dancing meant sending. And she couldn't think of a time in the past ten years when she'd done it to do anything but commune with the dead.
"Okay then. What've you got in mind?" Seifer asked.
It didn't take much thought; she didn't know many games. "Triple Triad. You have a deck, right?"
They sat down at one of the tables, pulling out chairs across from each other, and Seifer scooted her drink across to her with a charming smile. Fujin and Raijin took over at the dart board, leaving two empty chairs, one of which Seifer pushed out far enough to prop his feet up on. With an arm slung casually over the back of his chair, he selected the rules they'd play by: an easy set, giving him the advantage in setting up a game that could be won by pure brute force. A tactical situation which suited him.
"Are you going to visit the Farplane before we leave?" Seifer asked her as he put down his first card.
"No."
"Isn't it part of your duty as a Summoner or something?"
"I am only obligated to visit Yevon's temples." She countered his move.
Seifer frowned, the scar between his eyes puckering slightly. "I think the whole place is pretty damn hinky, but if the only reason you're avoiding it is because you're afraid of what you might see, you ought'a know that Squall didn't see them. Your parents, I mean. Well…adopted parents. I asked him. And he said the only person he saw was his mother."
"He didn't see Ell or Laguna, either?"
Seifer shook his head.
The surge of hope this news gave Quistis made her bold. "Why did you bother to ask him?"
"Hell if I know," he said, though Quistis doubted his honestly.
She put down another card on the table. Immediately, Seifer slapped down one of his own and turned hers over with a grunt of triumph. Hook, line, and sinker.
"So, are you going to visit the Farplane or not?" he asked.
"I don't think so. I'll be there soon enough. Right now, I'd rather spend my time here."
Her response quieted Seifer and he didn't say anything for the rest of the game, which she won in the final round of play. Graciously, she didn't claim any winnings and they started over again, the both of them taking an occasional drink from the Blue Ronso. Quistis wasn't sure how long they'd sat there playing, ignoring Squall and Rinoa on the dance floor, when Raijin and Fujin walked up to their table and announced that they were heading back to the travel agency.
"TIRED!"
"Yeah, I'm beat, ya know?" Raijin said, his sentence briefly interrupted by a hiccup.
"I suppose we should head out, too," Quistis agreed. "I'm starting to feel a little queasy…"
Seifer laughed. "I bet. Those Blue Ronsos you've been tossing back are some hard drinks."
"How hard?"
"You're going to feel it in the morning." He got up from the table and offered her his arm. Grateful, she took it and allowed him to heave her up out of her chair. He felt solid and warm and steady next to her. "It's the sweet ones you've got to watch out for. They sneak up on you," he told her.
"The other kind tasted awful."
He shrugged. "At least you know what you're getting."
It appeared that Squall and Rinoa had already left, as the dance floor had been vacated by everyone except one Guado waving his hands around in a way that more resembled semaphore than dance. Still clinging to Seifer's arm, Quistis followed Fujin and Raijin out the door. Without a sky above, she couldn't tell how late it had gotten, but the bare streets of Guadosalam suggested that she'd spent a few more hours at NORG's than she'd intended.
When they got back to the travel agency, Seifer put her to bed. And for a few minutes she lay there in the semi-darkness, watching as he pulled off his coat and his boots and tossed them into a pile with hers. Across the room, Rinoa was already asleep, just the crown of her dark head sticking out from under the covers. Squall rolled over in his narrow cot and met Quistis's eyes for a second before Seifer walked between them.
The really sad thing, she thought, was that Seifer wasn't here for her either. Just like Squall, he had his own agenda. It hadn't bothered her much coming from him though. Not until this moment, anyway, when suddenly she wished his motives pure.
"GOODNIGHT!" Fujin shouted from her cot.
"Sweet Yevon, Fu…shhh! People are trying to sleep!" Seifer scolded, then blew out the lantern.
Perhaps all the plans she'd made for this pilgrimage were just foolish dreams of a naive girl. When the Blue Ronsos wore off, she hoped she'd feel less sentimental and more practical.
0 0 0
Come morning, Quistis didn't look so good. Seifer tried to wake her up, and she only turned over in bed with a groan and pulled the covers up over her face. When he finally got her to sit up and take the glass of water he'd brought her, she scowled at it and stuck out her blue tongue. Rinoa fared a little better by virtue of the fact that the drink she'd chosen to indulge in at NORG's had been more fruit and sugar than alcohol. So the group unanimously decided to linger a while longer in Guadosalam. The mere notion of moving onto the Thunder Plains made Quistis grab her head and burrow further under the covers.
While she slept, Seifer went with his posse to grab a late breakfast.
He didn't much care for Guado food but managed to find a place open early that catered primarily to pilgrims in town to visit the Farplane. Inside, he ordered both for himself and a side meal to be boxed up for Quistis.
"I think she's starting to come around, ya know?" Raijin said. "She's starting to like you."
"She doesn't need to like me. She just needs to be fit and ready to perform the final summoning and defeat Sin," Seifer replied, though his recent visit with his mother had brought some of his old notions of what it meant to be a guardian back to the surface. Through the years, his dream had become more martial, more tinted by the real world and less by the fantasy he'd believed in as a child. Back on Kilika, he hadn't cared whether Quistis wanted him as her guardian; he could see the machinations of the universe and knew that they belonged together on this path. But now, with his mother fresh in his thoughts, part of him did want a purer connection. Something deeper and more genuine.
It all made him feel like such a wuss.
Back at the travel agency, he dropped the to-go box full of breakfast on Quistis's chest and she woke with a start. The ill effects of the night before must have worn off somewhat, because rather than retch at the smell of warm food, she took a deep breath, popped the container open, and grinned.
"We should stock up on supplies today," she said around a mouthful of bacon. "It's a long way to Bevelle."
By mid-afternoon, the the group had put themselves together and hit the streets. Seifer tagged along with Quistis to a small Guado shop whose sign advertised electrical dampening equipment sold within—things like arm-bands magically treated to deflect the attacks of the elemental fiends that lived in the Thunder Plains. When they walked in, they found the shop keeper already busy with a group of three people. Two men and a woman—all of them Lady Yuna's guardians.
"I'm worried about Tidus," the big-breasted, serious woman said as the shop-keeper rang up their sale.
"Why?" the man in the red coat asked.
"Isn't it obvious? He's sweet on Yuna," Wakka, the blitzballer, replied. "He isn't gonna be happy if Yuna decides to accept Maester Seymour's proposal. And I admit, I kinda agree with him. What's the point of a summoner marrying anyone?"
"It's about hope," the woman said. "If Yuna thinks this marriage will give Spira hope, then that's part of her duty."
"It's not enough that she's willing to die?" Wakka said, mirroring Seifer's own thoughts on the matter.
"No one said life is fair," the other man said. "Either way, it's not our choice. We're here to help Yuna on her journey, not dictate what it ought to be."
He didn't look the type, Seifer thought. The man had clearly been around the block a time or two. He had an old scar running down one side of his face that prevented him from opening his right eye all the way. His heavy sword and a well-used jug marked as rum dangled at his side. And he wore his arm sling-like inside of his haori—a cultivated appearance that Seifer recognized from a childhood spent steeped in the ways of guardians and knights and soldiers of old. This man had lost someone important to him. If anything, Seifer thought that this man would have a utilitarian, goal-oriented view of summoners, guardians, and their respective roles. Not some soft "be there for her no matter what" philosophy.
"Tidus doesn't understand that her duty comes before her personal feelings," the woman said. "You should talk to him, Auron. He trusts you."
Seifer's back went ridged. Like every wannabe guardian across Spira, Seifer had the name "Auron" burned into a very special place in his heart. The man was a legend in his own time—renown he'd earned by bringing about a decade long calm at the side of High Summoner Braska. There wasn't a person alive on the planet whom Seifer admired more. He wanted to tackle the man, demand to be taken under his wing and tutored in the ways of honor and battle. But the three were already walking out the door, heading back to rejoin their summoner.
When Seifer had seen the Lady Yuna along Mushroom Rock Road, he hadn't been terribly impressed. She'd looked young and quiet and not overly suited to the task of traveling the world, killing fiends and sinspawn. But with the magnificent Sir Auron at her side…?
Suddenly, the competition appeared much more fierce.
"And to think that I thought my pilgrimage was getting complicated…" Quistis said, her tone dry. "At least I'm not fielding any marriage proposals."
"Yet," Seifer said.
She glanced sharply up at him.
"Kidding! Come on. Let's finish up here and get going." With the way things were looking, the sooner they got to Zanarkand, the better.