Chapter 8: Macalania
Sopping wet and sick to death of rain, wind, and lightning, Quistis trudged up a steep hill that she hoped would finally take her out of the Thunder Plains' wide basin. Water squelched in her boots. And not even thoughts of long days spent languishing on Kilika's warm, sandy beach distracted her from the bone-deep cold numbing her body from the waist down.
The storm raging above made it difficult to keep track of time, so she had no idea how long she'd been walking since leaving the travel agency that morning. As she reached the top of the hill, she spotted a yellow shaft of sunlight breaking through the clouds in the distance. It cast a gauzy curtain of gold to the horizon, illuminating the thick, glittering forest ahead.
"At last," Rinoa said as she came up behind Quistis. "Macalania Woods."
The whole group skidded down the rain-slicked path toward the treeline below.
Although the woods had still appeared far away from the top of the ridge, it didn't take long before Quistis passed under the first silver-barked tree. Its leaves rustled in the breeze like wind chimes. She pulled back her hood to see them better.
The head priest in Kilika hadn't provided her with much information on this area, having only cut through the woods briefly on his way to Bevelle. So she had no sense of when this forest had come into being or what sort of secrets it held. She now realized, however, that the priest had understated its natural beauty. Breathless, tangled, ethereal wilderness closed in around Quistis as she walked, the roll of thunder overtaken by thick silence in a matter of steps.
An open patch of forest floor struck her as an inviting place to bed down for the night. The rest of her miserable party immediately agreed.
Raijin and Fujin left to gather wood while Squall cleared out a fire pit. Seifer, meanwhile, struggled out of his wet trench coat. He wrung it out as if fetching it straight from the wash, then tossed it over a low-hanging branch to dry. He forked one hand through his hair, leaving it sticking up in disarray.
Once Raijin and Fujin returned, a quick spell from Quistis earned them a crackling blaze which she fed to roaring.
"I don't think I've ever been this cold in my entire life," she said and held out her trembling hands until the flames seemed to be licking at her palms.
"I have," Seifer said and stepped up beside her. "Yesterday. But at least then I knew that I could look forward to a real bed and a hot bath. Don't suppose I'll be getting either of those here."
Fujin cast him a withering glance which he either didn't notice or chose to ignore. She still hadn't forgiven him for walking in on her the night before. Rinoa remained convinced that Seifer had intended to wak in on Quistis instead. After that, she'd spent more than an hour lingering in her own bath, perhaps hoping that Squall would attempt to walk in on her as well. When the water had grown cold and he still hadn't shown up, she went to bed with wrinkled fingers and a disappointed sigh. It had made for a lot of drama in the girls' bedroom—all of which Quistis found intensely amusing.
Growing up as an only child (and, subsequently, as an orphan) had left her with a deep longing for a normal family life. In particular, she envied Squall his sister, Ellone. After losing her parents, Quistis had liked to pretend that Ellone was her "Sis" too. In her mind, they cried together during the night and played games during the day. Those childhood fantasies lingered even into her teenage years when she'd so desperately wanted someone to talk about boys with, share clothes with, and be a regular girl with outside of her strict, formal training inside the temple.
Rinoa and Fujin seemed a pale echo of that dream—the closest she'd ever come to knowing solid and intimate female companionship.
At the moment, however, Quistis wanted some privacy in which to change out of her icy wet clothes. A huge tree flanked one side of their camp, its trunk so thick that she didn't think three people linking hands could reach all the way around it. As good a prospect for a moment out of eye-sight as any, she supposed, and started toward it, her bag slung over one shoulder.
"Where are you going?" Seifer asked before she'd even managed five steps.
"To change. I'll be back in a second."
His tone turned imperious: "You can't go into the woods alone."
She paused mid-stride to turn and face him. "Excuse me?"
"Remember what happened the last time you decided to step off the beaten path?" he asked, his arms crossed.
"Yeah. I seem to recall single-handedly conquering an ancient and powerful aeon in battle," she replied, hands on her hips.
"An aeon that could have killed you." His scowl created dramatic shadows across his face in the firelight.
"What are you trying to say? That I'm incompetent? Or that you want to come with me?"
From across the camp, Rinoa's head peeked over the fire at this new development, her eyes huge.
"No," he quickly backpedaled. "But someone should. This forest isn't as peaceful as it looks, and one of us ought to be with you to keep an eye out for trouble. Fujin will go with you. Won't you, Fu?"
He turned to her, but she refused to meet his gaze. Apparently, Fujin would be doing him no favors today.
"Rinoa?" he asked, hopeful. "How about you?"
"Me? Um...sorry. I'm a bit occupied at the moment," she replied through a huge grin. "Afraid you're going to have to keep an eye on her yourself if you're that concerned, Sir Almasy."
Freezing and all too aware that she could have ducked behind the tree, changed, and been back by the fire in the amount of time that Seifer had insisted in arguing over it, Quistis decided to cut her losses and pushed her way into the scrubby, waist high bushes. She didn't think anyone would bother to follow. But a second later, she heard noisy footsteps crashing after her—Seifer, obviously; no one else could manage to sound so hostile merely by walking.
"Don't worry. I'm not going to look," he said preemptively as he came up behind her. The foliage pressing in around them forced him to stand closer to her than he appeared comfortable with. "Just...hurry up and let me know when you're done." He dropped his own bag to the ground and turned his back on her.
Kilikans in general had a rather lax attitude toward nudity, so Quistis didn't angst much over stripping down to her underwear while Seifer did the same behind her. But she did feel put out by his attitude and the presumption behind it...that she couldn't take care of herself. How could he expect her to face Sin if he didn't so much as trust her to put on a pair of pants without supervision? He had to think her capable of completing the final summoning at least. Perhaps he thought that the summoning itself required minimal skill and that the journey represented the real hardship. She could fathom no other explanation for the conflicting images he appeared to have of her in his head.
She pulled on a dry shirt, then reached behind her head and unlatched her hair clip. She ruffled her fingers through her long, wet hair to separate the strands so that they'd dry, then took a deep, comforting breath and stood still for a moment, looking out through the trees. Tiny specks of tree cotton drifted through the air, catching the light and flashing like fireflies. The ground under her bare feet felt spongy with moss. And as her clammy skin began to warm under fresh clothes, her mood lifted, too.
Since she'd made no promises, she peeked over her shoulder at Seifer.
His wide, bare back met her gaze. Just a glimpse as he tugged a dark blue shirt down over his head.
"Are you done?" he asked before he even had it smoothed out over his stomach.
She considered making him stand there and wait as punishment for treating her so high-handedly. But she wanted to get back to the fire and recognized that at least some of his attitude might stem from how badly she'd spooked him the day before. So she gathered her wet clothes up with her boots and replied, "Yep. All done."
Together, they picked their way back to the camp.
Once everyone had changed, Raijn cooked dinner. Quistis ate with her toes close to the fire. They stung with the heat. Finally, when she felt full and warm and dry, she stretched her hands above her head and yawned. Bedding seemed incidental as she lay back against the warm forest floor, ready to give into the day's exhaustion.
Above her, Seifer and Squall argued over the merits of a set of blitzball moves that had been banned during their tenure—one called Fire Cross and the other called Rough Divide, both of which had apparently resulted in more injuries than points. She'd never heard Squall say so much so passionately in her entire life.
They were good for each other. Good for her, too.
But that didn't absolve her from doing the right thing come morning.
Knowing that she'd never get to enjoy a moment like this again, she pillowed her head on her arms and watched them through half-lidded eyes, their voices combined with the regular popping of the fire as soothing as any clear night in Kilika spent listening to the ocean waves lapping underneath the pier.
0 0 0
The night hadn't been long enough or the fire hot enough to completely dry Seifer's coat. He folded it carefully so that it wouldn't wrinkle in his pack. It meant a lot to him, both as a symbol and as one of his most cherished possessions. The flowing, light color complete with a flash of red emblazoned on each arm gave the garment the aspect of a warrior of light. And he liked seeing himself framed by its folds. Especially here. Especially now.
Once they broke camp, Quistis led the way into Macalania Woods. Strange fiends made their home among the trees, like amorphous blobs capable of shifting their defenses on a whim and fish-like creatures that swam through the air as if, from their perspective, the whole wood were underwater. The sensation of being submerged was enhanced by the way the foliage absorbed sound, creating a tangible hush.
And, unlike every other region of Spira, no ruins marked the landscape here.
Seifer wondered whether this wood had truly gone so long unchanged and undomesticated, or whether it had simply overgrown the last vestiges of what had once filled this wild place.
By mid-morning, they came to a fork in the road. One path curved and twisted, maze-like, through the trees. The other cut a wide, flat swath. Definitely the more traveled of the two. Rinoa broke from the group to stand in front of it.
"Well, this is my stop," she said. "Just a short walk from here to Bevelle's southern gate."
Quistis peered around her as if expecting to see the city there. "Are you sure you can make it the rest of the way on your own? The fiends here might still give you trouble."
"I know this road. It's safe," Rinoa replied. "The Forest Owls used to meet out here at night. That's how we got our name."
"Okay. So long as you're sure. You're certainly welcome to keep traveling with us if you want to though," Quistis said.
Seifer wondered at the tone of her voice. He'd got the impression early on that Quistis didn't care for Rinoa and had thought that she'd be delighted to see the other woman go her own way. But she sounded genuinely sad to say this goodbye.
Rinoa drew Quistis into a quick hug, whispered something in her ear, and then said, more loudly, "Thank you for escorting me this far. And good luck on your pilgrimage."
Seifer found himself next on her list of goodbyes. Her forceful hug startled him, but not half as much as the kiss she pressed to his cheek. He noted with some satisfaction that Quistis's mouth drew into a tight line. Still some jealousy and rivalry there, then. And over him. Interesting.
"It was good to see you again," Rinoa said when she let him go. "I'd wondered about you since you left Bevelle." She pulled her necklace off, popped the chain open, and removed the ring he'd given her many months ago—a solid band he'd bought for a couple of gil while walking with her through a street fair one warm summer night. She pressed it into his palm. "This is yours. I don't think I should keep it anymore."
Embarrassed, partly because her return felt like rejection and partly because she'd called attention to his romantic gesture, he felt his face warm with a blush. He wanted to do the noble thing and tell her that it had been a gift, that she should keep it (as a memento or even just a reminder of what sort of men to avoid in the future...however she wanted to memorialize their time together). But he didn't do any of that, just shoved the ring deep in his pants pocket and nodded.
With that, Rinoa turned her attention to Squall. She held out her arms in invitation. When he didn't respond, she rocked on her heels for a second and then dropped her hands.
"I guess that's it then," she said, hiding whatever she felt at Squall's hard-heartedness.
With a little wave, she started down the road to Bevelle. She didn't look back and Seifer felt a surge of renewed respect for the girl.
Squall didn't even watch her go. He just stood there with his arms crossed and his head down. Not for the first time, Seifer wondered what the hell the man was thinking. From the way he smiled at her and bent so freely to her will, it was clear that he cared about Rinoa in whatever shallow manner he was capable. And he'd never been committed to Quistis's pilgrimage. So why the surge of duty over love now?
Once Rinoa was out of sight, Quistis crossed her arms and turned on Squall.
"During Operation Mi'ihen, you went back against orders to save her," she said. "Along the Moonflow, you stepped in to save her from Deling without even a moment's thought for your own safety. So why in the world are you standing there doing nothing now that you're actually losing her?" She pointed at him, full of fire. "You're a fool."
Squall looked up at her, surprised and confused. Seifer supposed he wore a similar expression.
"Go after her," Quistis said and pointed down the path to Bevelle.
Squall frowned. "I can't."
"Why? Because of me? I think you're only here because you're hoping to find some way to save me from myself. But I made these decisions a long time ago, Squall. Whatever chance you had to change them has already come and gone."
Shamed, he remained rooted in place, head down.
"I am not your responsibility," she announced. "My fate is out of your hands."
"All I want is for you to—" he started, but she interrupted.
"I know. I understand how you feel. For the first time, really. Which is why I realize now that you could never be a proper guardian to me. And this, right here, is where our paths split. I want you to go live your own life."
For a second, Seifer thought Squall would refuse to honor her request. But, at length, he nodded. Without any proselytizing, he offered Quistis an awkward handshake.
She used her grip on his hand to tug him into a one-armed embrace. "Goodbye," she whispered in his ear.
Astonished, Seifer watched his rival walk away—heading after Seifer's ex, sure, but leaving the more important corner of their little love-square behind.
Quistis had been reluctant to accept Seifer from the moment she'd laid eyes on him deep in Kilika's fire-filled temple. She'd tried to ditch him, tried to replace him, and had done everything in her power to make certain that he knew how much she resented the way he'd forced himself into her life. Now she'd picked him over the one person in the world she cared most about. Over the one person Seifer most wanted to rise above. It left him dizzy with relief. Then, as it sunk in, with victory.
"Ready to go?" she asked and gestured up the footpath leading to the temple.
Seifer could have swept her up off the ground and kissed her. Hell, he could have done a lot more than that. He felt so on top of the world that, had Raijin and Fujin not been right at his heels, he might have tackled her into the mossy undergrowth and given his conquering spirit the free rein it desired.
All of the doubts he'd entertained while crossing the Thunder Plains faded—pushed out by his unbridled delight and by the shifting of reality that much closer to the image he held of himself deep in his heart. Seifer Almasy: finally, almost, a hero.
0 0 0
Over the course of the day, Quistis's impression of Macalania Woods shifted from that of a peaceful forest to one filled with oppressive silence. The regular rhythm of her own steps and the lack of conversation among her guardians now that Rinoa had departed along with her upbeat chatter allowed Quistis's thoughts to drift inward. And, as usual when she found herself with a surplus of time to think, she found herself contemplating her upcoming battle with Sin—imagining how it might feel to come face to face with the monster that had killed her parents and what might be involved with the final summoning.
Would it be painful?
Would she feel fear? Or would the light of Yevon fill her with courage?
None of the priests at the temple had given her much advice on the subject, assuring her instead that all of her questions would be answered over the course of her journey. Yet, more than halfway to Zanarkand, she knew no more about how her life might end than she had on the day she left Kilika.
In this, again, Quistis envied Yuna, who counted Sir Auron among her guardians. He had come this way once before and knew what to expect. He could provide real answers. Real assurances. Something Quistis knew she would have to do without.
Dwelling on the subject would only drive her to despair; she'd learned that lesson well while still in training. The thirst for vengeance had fueled her through the best of times. But in between, when the reality of her approaching demise settled over her like lead, she'd known the primordial terror of the bull led to slaughter. Eventually she'd confided as much to one of the temple acolytes, an older woman named Kadowaki, who had reassured Quistis that all summoners had such doubts and then helped her to put them aside, in part by re-focusing her on what good her sacrifice could do for all of Spira.
What a thing to have to teach a thirteen year old girl.
Her thoughts had her feeling subdued and pensive when Seifer stopped the group to make camp for the night. He and Raijin tromped off into the trees to gather firewood while Quistis and Fujin cleared away underbrush from their campsite.
"QUIET," Fujin said.
"Yeah. It feels ominous after the constant noise of the Thunder Plains. Doesn't it?"
"NO." Fujin dusted off her hands. "YOU."
"Oh." Surprised that she'd noticed, Quistis shrugged. "Just thinking."
"SQUALL?"
"No. Nothing like that. I feel like I did the right thing with him. He belongs with Rinoa. Not here with me."
Seifer must have overheard at least part of their conversation because when he walked back into camp with an armload of dry wood, he dumped it into a pile at her feet and asked, "Why are we still talking about that loser? He's gone now. And good riddance."
"You don't miss him even a little bit?" Quistis asked as she started the fire. "You seemed to get a lot of pleasure out of antagonizing him."
He flashed her a cocky grin. "Yeah. Well, I get a lot of pleasure out of antagonizing you, too. You're on my list."
Whatever that meant.
As usual, they ate and then settled in around the fire for the night. Long days of hard travel meant that no one had much trouble getting comfortable, and while Seifer insisted that he'd sit up for a while and keep and eye out for fiends, everyone else went to sleep without preamble.
When Quistis awoke early the next morning, he'd given up his watch to lay with his head at her feet, out cold. No one else had woke yet. So she stirred the dying embers of the their fire, added some additional fuel, and then stepped into the trees to relieve herself.
Their campsite sat within sight of a clear-water lake. She walked up to its rocky shore and wet her hands in the cold, lapping waves. Her chill fingers and palms felt good when she pressed them against her face, so she dunked her hands one more time and splashed water down her neck as well. The steady surge of water over rocks reminded her of home. She sat down and relaxed back onto her hands. Fireflies blinked on and off, their light reflected by the water's surface, making it look like a pool of stars in the darkness.
Footsteps behind her announced Seifer's dogged presence.
"I woke up and you were gone," he said, still sounding a little groggy.
"That happens when guardians fall asleep on the job," she replied, teasing.
He rolled his eyes. "Do you know what time it is? I can't tell in this damn place. Looks the same at noon as it does at midnight."
"Sorry. No idea."
He sat down beside her. He wore his trench coat again and had to shift Hyperion into his lap.
"How long have you had that?" she asked, glancing at his long blade.
"Forever."
"Did you inherit it? From your father maybe?"
He scoffed. "No. I bought it with blitz money back when I was still thinking about becoming a chocobo knight."
"You fight as if you've been a swordsman all your life."
"I think I have been...just not always a practicing one," he replied. "I was born for battle. Don't you feel that way about your whip? Or about summoning?"
"Not really."
"What else do you think you're supposed to do?"
"It's not that I've got some other calling. But if my parents had somehow survived Sin's attack, I doubt I'd be here now. I was never religious beforehand. And I certainly hadn't considered a career in service to Yevon. All of this is just sheer coincidence."
"Some people call that fate," he said. He leaned back on his hands. "But I'll play—if your parents were still alive, what do you think you'd be?"
Quistis shrugged. "I liked school. So I figure I'd have become a teacher."
One side of Seifer's mouth quirked up at that. "You? A teacher?"
"Is there something wrong with that?" she asked, irritated.
"No. But...there's no way any adolescent boy could take you seriously."
"Why not?"
"Because," he said, drawing out the word as if it should be obvious. When she raised her eyebrows, still clueless, he elaborated, "Quistis—you're hot."
She vacillated between feeling absurdly flattered and defensive. "So?"
"So, any self-respecting teenage boy would sit in class all day wondering what's under your skirt rather than listening to your lesson. Well...except Squall. But he's a special case, having hit puberty so late..."
Quistis ignored the jab at Squall: "So long as I established my authority, I don't think it'd be that big of a deal..."
"There is no authority above a teenager's hormones," Seifer insisted. "Trust me. Plus, being the person in charge would only make you more attractive. And I'm not even counting the whip into this equation. Add that and you'd have a whole herd of love-sick kids following your every move within a year, all of them hoping you'll ask them to stay after class one day for a little whip demonstration, if you know what I mean."
She flushed with embarrassment.
"That's why teachers are supposed to be old, matronly ladies. They gotta be someone no one will fantasize about bending over a desk. And you most definitely do not fit the bill."
Her face grew even hotter and she pressed the back of her still cool hand to her cheek.
"I doubt that's what would have happened," she said, her voice weaker than she'd have preferred.
Seifer began to respond, but stopped to yelp in pain and cover the back of his head with one hand. A second later, something hit Quistis hard in the arm, then bounced to a stop a few feet away. She winced.
"What was that?" she asked.
Seifer got to his feet to look back at the camp and right as he turned around something thumped against his chest. He swore and bent over in pain.
This time, Quistis was able to follow the arc of the projectile with her eyes, tracing it up into the tree branches above where she spotted a silver haired, long-tailed monkey holding onto an armload of rocks. Immediately, it saw that Quistis had spotted it. With a shriek, it dropped all of its rocks in a small hailstorm and scampered for cover.
"Hey!" Seifer yelled up at it, one fist extended. "Get back here, you little bastard!"
The commotion roused Raijin and Fujin who sat up just in time to see Seifer dart off into the trees, yelling profanities. No time to stop and explain—Quistis ran after him. The monkey flew with the speed and grace of a bird from one branch to another, its advantage so clear that it stopped from time to time to look back over its shoulder. Once, it even tossed something backward at Seifer's furious form, struggling through the thick brush after it. His wide wake made him easy to follow. But he managed to keep pace ahead of Quistis so that she ran after him at full tilt, errant bits of foliage catching in her hair and scraping her arms, but didn't catch up.
Far ahead, he lurched to a stop. She came up behind him and put one hand on his shoulder to discourage him from bolting again. Above them, the monkey swung down to a low-hanging branch and then dropped to the ground. It ran on all fours over to a figure sitting ahead of them on a mossy stump.
The man wore overalls, boots, and a weather beaten fisherman's cap. He had what looked like the broken branch of a tree in one hand and a skinny, long blade in the other. The monkey scrambled up his pant leg, heading toward the protected enclosure of his lap.
Startled, the man jumped to his feet. The monkey clung to his belt-loops.
"What in the world...?" Quistis felt as if she must be seeing an apparition.
Seifer did not seem bothered by the odd turn of events: "Hey! Whoever you are—" he called out. "Hand over the monkey!"
The poor man dropped his stick and put a protective hand over the creature's back. "What?" he managed to choke past his astonishment. He looked baffled but peaceful. He didn't raise his knife in response to Seifer's shouting, just did what he could to protect the tiny animal now in his care.
Seifer began to repeat himself, slowly as if talking to a mentally challenged foreigner. Eager to prevent further incident, Quistis interrupted him, pushing him to the side so that he knew without any doubt that she wanted him to shut up.
"I'm sorry. We didn't mean to startle you. We're just passing through on our way to the temple," she explained.
The man's aged face contorted with even more confusion. "Then what do you want with Mr. Monkey?"
Mr. Monkey?
Seifer and Quistis exchanged incredulous looks.
"The little monster decided to hang out about our camp and throw rocks at us," Seifer said, thankfully leaving out any description of what he intended to do once he got his hands on the animal.
Immediately, the man's expression softened, an apologetic and embarrassed blush apparent on his pale, tissue paper thin cheeks. "Oh dear. He does that sometimes. I haven't been able to break him of the habit, unfortunately. Did anyone get hurt?"
"No. We're fine," Quistis replied, though Seifer grumbled.
"Thank goodness. I try to keep and eye on him, but..." The man trailed off as the sound of approaching footsteps reached him. A moment later, Raijin and Fujin arrived, still alarmed and confused after having followed the path they'd left through the woods in their haste. When Raijin spotted the man holding the monkey, he made no effort at hiding his surprise.
"Who's that?" he asked, his jaw slack. "I thought nobody lived out here, ya know?"
"There's plenty of people who live out here," the man replied, sounding insulted.
"There are?" Quistis said.
"Of course there are." He made sure Mr. Monkey had a good grip on his waist, then bent down and retrieved his stick. He pointed with it back along a thin, dirt track that winded away behind him. "I live on the other side of those trees there, in Whittler's Glen."
"You mean there's an entire city here?" Quistis asked, her astonishment ranging toward doubtful.
He gestured them along. "Sure. Come on. I'll show you. By way of apology, you understand. For Mr. Monkey's transgression."
As they followed the man, the monkey peeked around his hip at Seifer who scowled menacingly at it and made a wringing motion with his hands.
The entire situation struck Quistis as entirely surreal. She couldn't fathom how anyone could live out their lives in such a claustrophobic, overgrown place. How long had it been since this man had seen the sun, she wondered? Who would want to live such a life? She imagined Whittler's Glen as nothing more than a collection of huts, a tiny hermitage with no more than half a dozen residents who had forgotten what a real city looked like.
That assessment failed her completely.
The man led them to a forest metropolis: expansive networks of tree houses linked with bridges filled the canopy while stone and mortar buildings covered much of the ground, all of it linked to a huge tower by black cables thick as dangling vines. Quistis guessed that these supplied power to the lights that cast a warm glow over the city and illuminated every window as far as she could see.
"How long has this been here?" she asked, breathless.
"Dunno. A thousand years, I'd guess," the man replied.
"How come I've never heard of it then?" Seifer asked.
"Probably because we keep to ourselves. Don't get many visitors either," he added, a fact which had already become evident to Quistis as people began crowding the treetop walkways to stare. "I'll take you to meet our mayor. He can tell you a lot more than I can."
He guided them to a metal staircase that climbed up a thick tree trunk. It felt strange to move up the spiral, traveling vertically through Whittler's Glen—out of what Quistis judged to be the municipal ground level of town and into the lofty residential portion. At the top of the staircase, an older man dressed similarly to their guide sat with his legs dangling off one of the tree house platforms, working wood and letting the shavings drop down below. Almost every house, Quistis noticed, had custom crafted decorations like the one in his hand.
When they arrived at the mayor's house, their guide knocked on the door using the butt end of his carving knife.
The man who answered stood hunched over and wore a light, tropical themed button-up shirt that looked incongruous against the backdrop of his home. He also wore open-toed sandals and shorts...evidently not a blue collar member of the community. Quistis supposed that he didn't venture away from the city much.
The man introduced himself as Mayor Dobe and invited them in. The wide open floor plan of his house reminded Quistis of her own back in Kilika.
A middle aged woman with a shaggy mane of graying hair walked into the room dusting her hands off with a dishtowel.
"This is my wife, Flo," Dobe said.
After introductions all around, Dobe invited them to sit down, so she did on a small couch whose frame had been hand carved from a single piece of honey colored wood. Seifer squeezed himself in next to her and it creaked under his weight. Raijin and Fujin elected to stay standing, as did their guide. Although the monkey let go of the man's waist to run off into an adjoining room.
"I have to admit," Quistis said, "I had no idea your city even existed."
Dobe smiled. "That's by design. We prefer not to be bothered by outside influences."
"What do you mean?"
"Whittler's Glen was founded by a group of people from Bevelle who wanted no part of the machina war with Zanarkand," he explained. "Our ancestors figured the forest would keep us sheltered from the violence. And it did. Peace is paramount here."
"The machina war has been over for eons," Seifer pointed out. "There's no reason to keep hiding."
"We're not hiding," Flo said. "We like it here."
"Right," Dobe agreed. "That war may be over. But that doesn't mean the world isn't still full of violence." He gestured to the weapons at their sides as proof. Any other Spiran would have considered them basic traveling gear.
"How do you protect your city from fiends? Kindly ask them to go away?" Seifer asked.
"They don't bother us," Dobe replied, the lofty position of his chin making it obvious that he attributed this fact to their chosen way of life, though Quistis thought it more plausible that the forest-dwelling fiends disliked the city's lights more than they respected the pure hearts of its residents.
"Still doesn't seem worth living in the dark, cut off from the rest of the world," Seifer said. "You're missing out on more than you realize."
"Maybe. But we have something no one out there does," Dobe replied. "Security. No one in Whittler's Glen knows the fear you live with every day. Of fiends. Or of Sin."
Quistis smiled. "Well, I aim to give that to the rest of Spira. We are on pilgrimage to Zanarkand."
"You're a summoner?" Dobe said, all of the friendliness draining out of his demeanor. Behind him, Flo looked so pale at the revelation that Quistis thought she might faint.
"That's right," Seifer said. "You guys talk about peace. But we actually deliver it."
The man who had guided them out of the woods and into the city looked confused. "What's a summoner?" he asked, his eyes darting back and forth between Dobe and Flo, both of whom ignored him.
"Is that what you think?" Dobe said. "Summoners have a history deeper than that of the church that now controls them, you know. In the time of the machina war, they were among Zanarkand's premier soldiers. Yevon, a summoner himself, brought Sin into this world."
"That's not true," Quistis snapped. Though aware that her church had its problems, she nevertheless felt the need to rise up in its defense. And she could think of no greater insult than to imply that Yevon himself—the very one who had taught Spira how to beat back the specter of Sin—had once been its creator.
"It is true. Summoners have been responsible for unprecedented death and destruction."
"Yeah? Tell that to the millions of people out there who rely on people like her for the few years of peace they're able to get," Seifer said, his adversarial tone helping to soothe Quistis's bruised faith.
Dobe shook his head and looked her in the eye. "You don't even know what it is you've been trained to do. You think you're saving the world, but you're just throwing yourself into a flood...keeping the cycle of violence going. Even if you do everything Yevon tells you, Sin will come back. Because it's not the aeon turned feral beast that's the problem. It's the war-mongering summoner at its heart."
Unable to take any more, Quistis stood up. "You're right. I think we should go."
"Please do," Dobe replied, his voice hard. "And tell no one at the temple that you've been here. I'd rather your Yevonite brethren not bring their battle to the last peaceful place in all Spira as well."
When Quistis turned to go, she noticed the man who she'd met out in the forest now regarding her as if he'd just learned that she'd personally ordered Sin on its path of death and destruction. She'd never been feared before and the sensation bothered her.
Dobe personally saw them out of the city and back to the trail that would take them to the main road leading to the temple. Then he stood and watched while they walked away, as if he thought she might turn around and crush the whole city to embers with her aeon just to punish them for daring to retreat from the fight.
In truth, she could see the appeal of their lifestyle. They had what the rest of Spira desperately wanted. And she didn't blame them for not wanting to face the daily terror of fiends and Sin. But at the same time, she didn't understand how they could ignore the suffering in the rest of the world. How any people claiming to love peace could allow themselves to become so inured to the desperate plight of so many.
Seifer complained loudly, calling them cowards and worse as they walked.
Raijin and Fujin agreed. The two of them seemed particularly bothered by Dobe's blaspheming of Yevon and summoners. "Sin sure isn't going to up and disappear if we all sit on our hands the way these Whittler people do, ya know?" Raijin said. "Everyone knows the only way that will happen is through Yevon's teachings."
Except the Al Bhed, Quistis thought. And, up until recently, the Guado. Perhaps even the Hypello had their own theories—she didn't think anyone had ever bothered to ask one.
And she couldn't help but recall the path that Yevon and his church had taken so many Crusaders down on Mushroom Rock Road. She hadn't forgotten the thousands who died there. Or the fact that Maesters Kinoc and Seymour had endorsed the operation.
The Whittler's Glen people had been cut off from the rest of the world since before Zanarkand fell. Since before Sin itself. Maybe, she thought with a hint of painful doubt, they had a clearer memory of those events. Maybe they knew something that had been lost down the centuries to the unfaithful preaching of Yevon's followers.
The temple's teachings represented everything she relied on to orient herself in this world, to make meaning out of her death.
Her misgivings made her stomach twist. Guilt rushed in at her weakness.
This was not the time for a crisis of faith.
Sir Auron knew the truth, she reminded herself. He knew Sin face to face. Knew the final summoning. And he still accompanied Yuna on her path there. That had to mean something. He couldn't think like Mayor Dobe that Yevon sat at the root of Sin's evil. Yuna herself meant to marry a maester, for goodness sake. So it couldn't be true.
"That idiot didn't get to you, did he?" Seifer asked.
She looked up to find him looking back at her, his expression concerned and (she thought) a little disappointed.
"No. Of course not," she replied.
"Good. Because I'd hate to have to leave you behind to whittle the rest of your days away, talking crazy shit about the power of peace." He put a hand on her back to guide her to the front of the group. "There's just no way we could be manipulated into thinking we're the good guys in this when we're not," he continued. "Trust me."