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batsutousaiTitle: Crooked Wings
Author: Batsutousai
Rating: T
Pairings: Tidus/Seymour
Warnings: AU, major canon-fuckery
Summary: On that fateful day when Yunalesca faced Sin, only part of her died, and the part that stayed alive finds itself in Spira a thousand years later.
Disclaim Her: Ugh. Translating of Al Bhed. *stare* If it's bold, it's Al Bhed.
A/N: The beginning of this chapter is full of tears and I really cannot explain how that happened. I'm sorry.
Honesty time: I finished this chapter about two weeks ago, but between packing up to go home after two weeks catsitting, and then seeing my mum off for her work trip, I completely forgot to post it. Also forgot to work on the next chapter, so I'm gonna go get on that. Sorry for the delay, minna-san!!
Related: This chapter has actually had a second read-through. XD
Stepped Into a Cruel World
-0-
They arrived at Kilika just before sunset, and Yuna couldn't help but compare this visit to her last one: There was a certain lack of destruction, which was nice, and the group that came to meet them as they disembarked from the airship was made up of more hodgepodge Crusaders, rather than the crowds of villagers hoping to find out their family aboard the S.S. Liki had survived, or inform those survivors that they'd lost someone.
These Crusaders didn't lower their guns at the sight of Yuna, unlike Gatta and his trainees, but they didn't start shooting, either, which wasn't quite the best possible outcome, but she'd take it.
Rikku took the lead, unflinching when the five guns focussed on her. "I'd like to see Elder Kichirou," she announced, no sign of the bubbly girl Yuna had come to know over the course of their friendship. (Of course, the more she discovered about Lady Gina – High Summoner Yunalesca – and Sin, the less she realised she knew about anything.)
The Crusaders traded uncertain looks, then the one in the lead nodded and another one ran off into the village. "He'll be fetched. Who are you?"
"Rikku, guardian of Summoner Gina. This is Summoner Yuna, my cousin, and her guardian, Sir Kimahri." At the mention of a summoner, the guns finally lowered, but there was still a very obvious air of hostility aimed at the Al Bhed girl in the front, which was as abhorrent to Yuna as it was expected.
"Dame Rikku?" an elderly voice called, and everyone turned to find an older man hurrying towards them, a couple of other people and the Crusader sent off to fetch him, trailing behind him.
"Hey, Kichirou!" Rikku called, jumping and waving, back to her bubbly self. It was almost a relief, even if Yuna was a little thrown by the rapid change.
"You know this girl, Elder?" the lead Crusader requested as the elder reached the group.
"I do. She and her fellow guardian, Sir Tidus, were the ones who warned us about Sin," he agreed, and the Crusaders all nodded in understanding, turning more welcoming gazes on Rikku. "But, Rikku, where is Tidus?" the elder asked, looking over Yuna and Kimahri as if they were just part of the scenery.
"Tidus is in Macalania," Rikku offered, "and Gina is in Bevelle. We came to visit the priests up in the temple, ask for their help."
"Oh!" Yuna stepped forward, touching Rikku's shoulder gently and focussing on the Crusaders. "Apologies. Do you have anyone in your group capable of performing the sending?"
"The sending?" the leader repeated, before glancing at one of the two women in his squad. "Sora and I both can."
"We need your help, then," Rikku offered, everything about her brightening. Yuna could feel her quivering under her hand, as though she was barely stopping herself from jumping in place or something equally energetic, and she really did prefer this side of her cousin, if only because it made it easier for her to smile, herself.
"We think we found a way to defeat Sin," Yuna continued, "and we need the help of everyone in Spira who's trained in the sending to do it."
The female Crusader that had been pointed out covered her mouth and whispered, "Really?"
"Really really!" Rikku agreed, grinning so wide, Yuna thought it had to hurt.
"We won't know until we try," Yuna cautioned, "but it's worth trying, right? And this way, no one has to die."
"Sin will kill anyone who gets close enough to try," one of the villagers pointed out, tone cold.
"Only if it can reach airship," Kimahri intoned, and everyone looked up at the massive machina glowing in the final rays of the sun at the end of the dock.
"We're going to have to get on that?" the Crusader leader requested, looking uncertain.
"It's perfectly safe!" Rikku insisted, looking somewhere between incensed and gleeful.
Yuna had already learnt, in Besaid, that Rikku's idea of assurances were not very...reassuring, especially since she so enjoyed the reactions of non-Al Bhed around any form of machina. So she stepped past her cousin and placed a careful hand over where the Crusader's hands were wrapped around the barrel of his gun. "Do you want to destroy Sin?" she asked.
The Crusader met her eyes and gave a firm nod. "That's all I want," he admitted.
Yuna nodded back. "This is our only chance, this airship. Maybe it's against the teachings, and maybe we don't really know how it works, but isn't the danger worth it?"
"That's what we said, at Operation Mi'ihen," the Crusader replied, sounding so tired, so broken, and Yuna knew that feeling, had carried a part of it with her since looking out over the ruins of that battlefield.
"I was at Operation Mi'ihen," Yuna admitted, and the Crusader's eyes widened, something that might have been recognition lighting his eyes. "It was terrible, yes, but that doesn't mean it was the wrong thing to do," she continued, remembering what Lady Gina had said before they'd been let past the gate, what Maester Seymour had said once they were past it. "I think that everyone deserves the chance to fight, to face Sin with whatever weapons they have at their disposal. Yevon–" Her breath caught and she had to clear her throat, before raising her voice to declare, "Yevon isn't always right."
"Sacrilege!" someone shouted.
Yuna shook her head and withdrew her hands against her breasts, clasping them together like a too-violent prayer. "Then I will be sacrilegious," she replied as Rikku and Kimahri came to stand at her shoulders, twin pillars of support that helped give her the courage to say, "I have spoken to High Summoner Yunalesca, and she says the Final Summoning isn't the way, that we have to fight to destroy Sin, all of us. Hume and Al Bhed and ronso and guado, all of us together."
Yunalesca's name, as Yuna had known it would, had a particular effect on the crowd, draining their anger in seconds. Confusion made people look to their neighbours, while others looked between Yuna and her two guardians, not a one of them full-hume.
Yuna took a step forward, away from her pillars of support, and held out her hands towards the two Crusaders who could perform the sending. "Will you fight?"
They traded looks, then stepped forward in sync, each taking one of her hands. "With all we are," the leader agreed, and there was a glint of determination in his eyes that Yuna felt burning in her own chest. It had burned away so much of her sorrow, all her regrets and uncertainties, and she couldn't be anything but grateful to see it spreading to others.
The elder, Kichirou, cleared his throat and stepped forward. "You always bring such excitement when you visit, Dame Rikku," he commented, and the way his gaze went between Yuna and Rikku, she knew she was being included in that remark. She ducked her head, the closest to an apology that she would allow herself, and the elder chuckled. "Please, won't you three share the evening meal with me and sleep here overnight? The forest is treacherous at night; best to wait until morning to travel to the temple."
Yuna glanced back towards Rikku and Kimahri. Kimahri nodded, while Rikku grinned, and Yuna turned back to the elder with a grateful smile. "We welcome your offer. Also, uhm, there's two priests and a Crusader we picked up in Besaid who might welcome a chance to sleep somewhere other than the airship, if that's not a problem?" she added a bit helplessly, because while she and her party hadn't had trouble sleeping on the airship that first time, exhausted as they were from traversing Mt Gagazet, their recent additions had clearly been far too fresh to blindly trust their safety, even when the airship was intending to remain at dock overnight.
Kichirou wasn't the only one to laugh, and others in the gathered crowd were quick to offer sleeping arrangements for the two priests, while the leader of the Crusaders wasted no time in offering up a bed for their visiting fellow. So Rikku called up to the airship and had the three guests sent out, and everyone dispersed to their various lodgings, Yuna's party following Kichirou.
Dinner was filled with many stories of their travels, and Yuna got to hear about Home and the Yevon-directed attack on it for the first time. She couldn't meet her cousin's eyes for a long time after that story, ashamed at the actions of the order she'd spent her life following.
"Yunie," Rikku said when they settled into the room they'd been given for the night, "it's not your fault, what happened in Bikanel. You were already on to the Calm Lands by then, I think."
"But I believed them," Yuna whispered. "I–"
"You'd never have agreed to send people to destroy Home," Rikku interrupted, so very certain. "No matter what they said about their reasons, you'd never have agreed with that. You can't blame yourself for their actions. That's on them."
"I still believed in them, Rikku. About the evils of machina, how the Final Summoning was–" Yuna squeezed her eyes shut against tears, tried to grab for that determination that had kept her going for so long. But now, in this dark room, with only her cousin to hear her fall apart, she was what she had always been: a seventeen-year-old girl who had spent half her life preparing to walk to her own death with arms spread wide. "I believed–"
Arms wrapped around her, small and yet strong, stronger than Yuna had ever felt, herself. "Everyone needs something to believe," Rikku whispered, and her voice cracked, as though she'd been too-long carrying as heavy a burden as Yuna now found weighing down her own heart. "There's nothing wrong with letting yourself be comforted by what others say, lies or not. That's okay. We all need lies, sometimes, because the truth–" Rikku's arms tightened around Yuna, as though she needed something to cling to as much as Yuna needed the comfort of the hug. "The truth is ugly," she whispered, and there was something in her voice, some dark promise of things Yuna still didn't know, wasn't certain she wanted to know.
"Tell me," she requested, because she was beginning to learn what it meant to truly be brave.
So Rikku told her about Yu Yevon, about how a high summoner's guardian was sacrificed to become the Final Aeon, how that guardian became a part of Sin. She explained how Lady Gina had been kept safe in Sin, a part of her, and how Rikku had found her and Tidus in the ruins of Baaj Temple, both so out of place, searching for answers to the simplest things.
"And Tidus?" Yuna had to ask when Rikku sounded like she was done.
But Rikku shook her head, a motion barely noticeable in the darkness of their room. "That's not my story to tell," she replied, and she sounded so broken, that Yuna wondered if her cousin was keeping quiet for Tidus, or because she couldn't bear to voice whatever dark secrets he hid behind his teasing smiles and jokes at another's expense.
Yuna let it go, because she was tired and sick at heart. "Bed?" she suggested, and Rikku let out a breath that spoke of relief.
"Yeah," she said, and they retreated to their own beds. "Good night, Yunie."
Yuna stared down at the shadows of her hands in the darkness. "Thank you," she heard herself replying, and Rikku shifted across the room. "Good night."
It was a long time before Yuna actually managed to fall asleep.
They'd reached the Al Bhed shop on the edge of Macalania Lake just after sunset. Rather than going blindly into what would almost certainly be an unfriendly welcome – Tidus was about ninety-eight percent certain that they'd beat whatever update would be coming from Bevelle, given how brief their stay in Guadosalam had been, and both Auron and Seymour had seemed inclined to agree – they'd bunked for the night in the empty inn. The staff seemed grateful for the visitors, and were all too happy to paint a grim picture of how the temple was fairing, with their high priest declared a traitor.
"Word from the Al Bhed is he's not," the woman added quietly to Tidus, eyeing where Seymour and the two guado guards were speaking quietly, having left it to Tidus to gather any rumours.
Tidus nodded to himself; that explained why they hadn't been turned away at the door. "The way I see it, 'traitor' is Bevelle-speak for 'he and the Grand Maester had a disagreement'," he allowed drily.
The woman snorted and straightened. "Good point. What'd they argue over, the nutritional benefits of chocobo meat?"
Tidus choked on a laugh and covered his face, because he was near certain that Mika couldn't care less about nutrition, being unsent.
"Tidus?" Seymour called.
Tidus shook his head. "I wasn't privy to the argument," he offered to the shop keep before walking over to the group of guado. "Hey."
The two guards inclined their heads to him respectfully, while Seymour gave him a quick glance-over. "Something amusing?"
"Passing thought," Tidus replied, shaking his head. "Rooms are settled for the night, three to share amongst us five. If Auron never comes back in," he continued, turning to the two guards and trying not to scowl at the thought of his mentor, "you're free to each take a room to yourself. I'm not, honestly, certain he needs sleep."
"I expect he needs some," Seymour offered, shaking his head. "Though that may just be a ploy for appearances' sake. You could always go ask him."
Tidus did scowl then, thinking back to the sphere Auron had derailed them to pick up with a message from Jecht. "I'd sooner push him through that hole in the lake," he muttered.
Seymour chuckled and caught his hand. "I suspect he'd simply come back," he pointed out.
"You could always send him?" Tidus suggested, and the two guado guards had to muffle their amusement with their hands.
"I do believe Lady Yuna would never forgive me," Seymour replied, his eyes sparkling with amusement. "Shun," he said to one of the guards, "go find Sir Auron and ask after his preferred sleeping arrangements for the night."
The guard stood and gave a quick bow. "Lord Seymour," he agreed before leaving the inn to hunt down the missing guardian.
Seymour stood himself and nodded to the remaining guard. "I believe we'll turn in for the night."
"Before Auron comes back in and I give in to the urge to–" Tidus started muttering, before Seymour somewhat absently covered his mouth with his free hand.
The guard snorted. "Of course. I will remind you, Lord Seymour, not to leave for the temple without us in the morning."
Seymour scoffed, the picture of offence.
Tidus pulled his lover's hand from his mouth. "I'll be sure to wake you," he promised, though he honestly doubted Seymour would try leaving without their protection detail.
The guard nodded. "Very well. Enjoy your rest, Lord Seymour, Sir Tidus."
With that parting, Seymour followed Tidus to the borrowed room and they quickly set about taking advantage of the first moment they'd had alone since before they'd dropped Gina at Bevelle.
But Tidus, when they both finally settled down to sleep, found he couldn't. Jecht's words kept replaying in his mind: "Anyways... I believe in you. Be good." And he just...
"Fathers," Seymour murmured, likely warned by Tidus' restless motions as to the train of his thoughts, "are wretched things."
Tidus turned from where he'd been staring blindly into the dark room and pressed his face against Seymour's chest. "I hate him so, so..."
"I know," Seymour whispered, and his arms wrapped tight around Tidus.
Tidus knew that Seymour did know. Out of everyone he'd met in Spira, the half-guado was probably the only one who had more than an inkling of how Tidus felt. Even Auron, who had raised him, seemed to care more for Jecht's feelings than he did Tidus'. "Did Jyscal ever–"
"Apologise?" Seymour suggested, even though the message Jecht had left barely counted as an apology.
"Yeah."
Seymour sighed. "He made...an attempt," he offered, so quietly, the darkness seemed almost to swallow the words. "He said he'd never meant Mother to die, that he should have been more concerned for her health. But that was–"
"Not an apology," Tidus finished.
"No," Seymour agreed, sounding as weary as Tidus felt.
They were both quiet for a long moment, bound together by their shared dislike of their fathers.
Finally, Seymour admitted, "I killed him, when he turned to leave. If he'd apologised..." His arms tightened around Tidus.
"You'd still have killed him," Tidus murmured, unbothered by that simple fact.
"But not right then."
Tidus nodded.
"If Jecht hadn't become Sin..." Seymour started before trailing off.
Tidus sighed, trying to imagine a world where his father was still alive, where he'd come back to Zanarkand, or had met them in Luca or somewhere along Mi'ihen. He shook his head. "I wouldn't kill him," he decided, "but I wouldn't feel bad about destroying Sin, either. Not on his account."
Seymour's arms tightened around Tidus.
"I'm sor–" Tidus started, because he knew exactly where his lover's mind had just gone, because his own had gone the same way: He was going to vanish soon.
"Stop," Seymour ordered, and his tone was that of a maester, of a man used to being obeyed. "You won't–" His voice broke and he fell silent.
"I love you," Tidus whispered, because he needed to, because they'd just been talking about the things their fathers had never said, the things they'd needed to hear. "I'm sorry."
'I wish I were more selfish, I wish I could put you above everyone else in Spira, I wish I could stay with you forever. I wish I was less my father's son, less inclined to "play to the crowd".'
"I won't let you go," Seymour swore, and his voice shook, like he knew as well as Tidus did that they were out of time, that there were no more solutions; no magic in Spira could keep Tidus around once Sin was gone.
Tidus opened his eyes and stared at Seymour's darkened chest, not even pretending to stop the tears that dripped from his eyes. Jecht could call him a cry baby a thousand times over; Tidus had a right to these tears.
And, from the growing damp patch on his scalp, under where Seymour had rested his cheek, he wasn't alone in his misery.
As Tidus had expected, Seymour had been perfectly content to wait for the two guado guards to be up and ready to go, rather than just up and leaving.
"Has he ever run off without guards?" Tidus asked once they'd started out. The night had eased some of his ire towards Auron, but he still figured it was better to have a buffer between himself and his mentor while walking next to that extremely tempting hole. (And, no, he really didn't care that his irritation was misplaced in many regards; Auron had pushed things and Jecht wasn't here to suffer his share.)
"Lord Seymour?" the guard on his right – Tidus was pretty sure she was named Kaoru – clarified.
"Yeah."
The two guards eyed each other over Tidus' head for a moment, having some sort of silent conversation. Tidus rolled his eyes at them and resigned himself to waiting them out. He could have asked Seymour, and he might even have got the truth, but a part of him wanted to get to know his lover's people while he still had the chance.
"When he was a child," Shun, the guard Seymour had sent out after Auron the night before, offered carefully, "I have heard, he was known to vanish."
Tidus considered that for a moment, remembering that Seymour had said he'd grown up in the ruined temple that Tidus and Gina had first met in. "In – what's it called again – Baaj Temple? Those ruins? Yeah, I expect there'd be lots of hiding places for a kid, there."
The guards traded looks again. "They were not so very ruined at first," Kaoru replied. "Before Lord Seymour's mother...died, they were much grander."
Tidus remembered the water-logged flowers they'd shifted through, trying to find something dry to burn in the old fire pit, the remainder of colourful paint hidden from water damage under fallen masonry, the ruins of wooden furniture with beautifully carved designs, and he nodded sadly. "I don't expect he was much of a mind to care about their home after she sacrificed herself."
"She... Aimi didn't expect either of them would return," Kaoru offered carefully.
Tidus took a deep breath, forced himself to focus on the revelation of Seymour's mum's name, rather than on how badly both of his parents had set the stage for Seymour's particular brand of twisted. "Her name was Aimi?" he asked.
"You didn't know?" Shun replied.
Tidus shook his head. "I never asked," he admitted, "and Seymour doesn't tend to use her name, not like he does with his dad." He sighed while the two guado traded looks again. "I wouldn't have known Yuna's mom's name either, you know, if it weren't for Rikku mentioning it a couple times. For all the press – bad or good – that Seymour and Yuna and their dad's get for being interracial, Spira seems to forget it takes two people to make a child."
Kaoru let out a cough that sounded suspiciously like it was masking a laugh. "Well said, Sir Tidus."
Tidus pressed his lips together tightly, thinking of his own mum and how she'd always been shoved into the shadows. Tidus had always been Jecht's kid, had always had Jecht's talent, had always suffered because Jecht had died. No one had cared that his mum had raised him, that she'd been half the reason he'd stuck with blitzball when he no longer had a father to best, that her death had hit him far harder than Jecht's had.
"Famous fathers," he heard himself muttering, "suck." Then he hurried forward to meet a fiend that had poked its head around the bend, grateful for something to focus his irritation on.
He ended up leading the group with Auron for most of the trip across the icy paths, Seymour behind them and the two guado watching their backs. Auron was silent, save for calling out warnings when a fiend showed up, and Tidus appreciated the silence, even as a part of him waited for more 'wisdom'.
There was a priest waiting outside the doors of the temple when they arrived, as there had been during Tidus' last visit, and while he glanced right over Auron and Tidus without any reaction, he tensed upon seeing Seymour. "Lord Seymour," he called, and there was a well of poorly suppressed hostility in his tone.
Seymour stepped forward, stopped from taking the lead by Tidus and Auron's refusal to get out of his way. He let out a quiet sigh, but didn't force the issue, instead offering, "Father Daichi."
The priest's mouth pressed into a thin line, but he allowed a perfunctory bow. "We received word just this morning that there was an...error, in the declaration of your being a traitor."
"Ah." Seymour let out a quiet hum. "Please, speak your mind."
The priest straightened, his disgust obvious. "I know you, Seymour," he said, and the two guado guards behind Seymour let out disapproving noises at the lack of title. "I know Lord Jyscal died while he was visiting you here. If ever there was a misspoken decree from Bevelle, it was this retraction."
"I see," Seymour murmured, and he didn't sound even passingly bothered by the hostility. "And if it is true, that my father died by my hand? What will you do?"
The priest looked over the gathered group: Tidus with his sword in hand, Auron with his unmoving stare, Seymour with that faintly mocking smile Tidus knew he was wearing, the two guado with the threatening air that Tidus could feel without seeing their expressions. "Nothing," the priest admitted, looking away.
"We're here for those who can perform the sending," Auron announced into the following silence.
The priest focussed on Auron, clearly grateful to have someone neutral to answer to. "For destroying Sin, we have heard," he admitted, and Tidus couldn't resist an admiring whistle at how ahead of the game Gina was. "They are preparing to travel to Bevelle now."
"Then we'll leave them to it," Auron decided before turning and motioning that the guado should lead the way from the temple.
At the gate separating the rather more treacherous ice path to the temple from the ravine leading to the Al Bhed shop, they stopped to regroup.
"I suppose we should head for Djose, now," Tidus offered.
"We'll have to call the airship," Seymour replied. "I cannot travel back through Guadosalam."
"The guard will not stop you," Shun insisted.
Seymour shook his head, and Auron murmured, "Better not to further stir already restless waters."
Tidus snorted and looked out over the ravine. "Whatever. We'll have to go back to where the hole is to have enough room for the airship to manoeuvre, so we might as well head out, and I can call Cid on the way. If we beat them, we can take shelter in the shop."
"Then let us head out," Seymour decided, and they left the minor protection of the gate.
Tidus fell back to walk with Seymour, leaving Auron to handling any incoming fiends at the head of their group, and pulled out the communicator Cid had passed him before they'd got off at the Moonflow. "Yoo-hoo!" he called into it.
There was a moment of silence over the radio, then Cid replied, "Fahrenheit here. What do you need, Tidus?"
"We're about two hours out from the travel agency at Lake Macalania. Think you can pick us up there and drop us at Djose Temple?"
"Yevon-Djose Temple," Seymour corrected quietly.
Tidus rolled his eyes.
Cid chuckled. "We're waiting to ferry Rikku and Yuna and whoever they pull from Kilika over to Luca, then we'll come pick you up."
"Why Luca?" Tidus asked. "There's not a temple there."
"Some summoners who gave up their pilgrimage have settled there, away from Bevelle's judgement," Seymour offered.
"That, and we've been picking up Crusaders who've learnt the sending. One of the ones here on Kilika suggested asking at Luca and checking along the Mi'ihen Highroad," Cid explained.
"I had not thought of the Crusaders," Seymour said to himself, shaking his head.
Tidus nodded. "Auron suggested having gathering points in Luca and Bevelle, so the airship wasn't getting more and more crowded as we picked up people."
Cid chuckled again. "The Yevonites will appreciate that; had to unload the lot from Besaid at Kilika overnight, on account of their nerves."
Tidus snickered. "I really can't wait to see all of them on board."
"They will be more distracted with Sin, I think," Brother called, his voice distant over the radio.
"Either way," Cid said loudly, and Tidus could imagine the look he would be throwing Brother right then, "I'll pass on the message. We should get to the travel agency by dark, at the latest, so don't get too settled in."
"Yes, I'm beginning to see where Rikku gets it," Tidus offered, and Cid guffawed before cutting the connection on his end. "I guess that means we don't have to rush?" he said to Seymour.
The half-guado nodded up to where Auron was setting their pace. "I don't believe Sir Auron is aware of that."
"Pretty sure he wouldn't care, even if he did," Tidus muttered before leaving his lover to catch up with Auron, and maybe slow him down.
When they got to Luca, the four priests and three Crusaders were so very happy to offload. "Leave our compatriots to us," the Crusader leader from Kilika suggested to Yuna, Rikku, and Kimahri.
The priests, likewise, offered to send out the word for ex-summoners and members of the Yevon clergy who had training in the sending and were residing in or near Luca.
"So, where does that leave us?" Yuna asked once the two other groups had left, the airship already long gone to pick up Maester Seymour, Tidus, and Auron.
"Well," Rikku started, looking past the buildings of the city, towards the stairs up to the Highroad, "we could do our part to collect anyone travelling, maybe meet up with Tidus and them in Djose?"
"Long trip," Kimahri reminded them solemnly.
"Not if we take chocobos!" Rikku insisted, grinning widely.
"It's better than standing around, waiting for Uncle Cid to come pick us up again," Yuna admitted.
"What are we waiting for?!" Rikku shouted, before hurrying off into the city.
Yuna chased after her with a laugh, leaving Kimahri to bring up the rear with a resigned sound.
When Gina, Lulu, and Wakka entered Remiem Temple – their guide from Bevelle already having left to take word to the ronso about needing those capable of the sending – they found a woman dressed in shades of green awaiting them in the centre of the room. She stared at Gina for a long moment, eyes going wide, then sank to her knees, breathing, "Lady Yunalesca."
Gina carefully stepped forward, uncertain what to make of this woman who inhabited the abandoned temple. "I prefer Gina, please," she requested, because there would always be too much attached to her birth name for her to be comfortable with it, any more. (And she could only ever be grateful to Tidus for suggesting she pick an alternative name, something that had none of that thousand years' worth of history, didn't recall stolen memories of haunting the lonely stadium in Zanarkand, waiting for some unknowing summoner to come and repeat her greatest mistake.)
The woman looked up at her, her eyes full of worship enough to power all of Bevelle for decades. "Lady Gina," she replied. "I am Belgemine, a summoner who–" she swallowed loud enough to be audible across the distance between them "–failed." And pyreflies began to leak from her form.
Lulu and Wakka let out quiet noises of regret behind her, even as Gina cleared the space between them and knelt before the fallen summoner. "Greetings, Lady Belgemine," she offered quietly, and the unsent smiled. "What has you hiding out in this forgotten temple?"
"I am not always here," Belgemine offered as she got her form back under control. She nodded towards the two guardians who had held back. "Those are the guardians of Lady Yuna, High Summoner Braska's daughter, are they not?"
"They are," Gina agreed. "You've met before?"
Lulu's hair pieces jingled, warning of her approach, and she offered, "We've met Lady Belgemine a few times. She always challenges Yuna to a match of aeons."
"A friendly challenge, to help her train," Belgemine added.
Gina nodded. "In Zanarkand, during the war, we would often fight each other. It helps you learn the strengths and weaknesses of two different aeons at the same time, and shows where to improve your technique in a friendly setting."
Belgemine ducked her head. "There is writing about that, in the records kept in the Palace of St. Bevelle. I read them during my training there, and when I died during my journey, I decided the best thing I could do, was serve that purpose for other summoners, so they might survive where I did not." She shook her head and looked towards Lulu and Wakka, both of whom had come to stand behind Gina. "I had expected Lady Yuna to be my next visitor."
"Right after you left," Wakka offered, tone careful, "we got word of things going wrong in Bevelle, so Yuna said she just wanted to push on. She hoped–"
"That bringing the Calm would ease the people," Belgemine guessed, nodding. "Was she not right?"
"Thing is..." Wakka cleared his throat uncomfortably.
"I met them in Zanarkand," Gina offered, saving Wakka from having to rehash the truth she knew he was still uncomfortable with. "The Final Aeon of Zanarkand was never a solution, simply a stop-gap, so we're looking into another way."
"Such can exist?" Belgemine whispered, and there was so much hope in her words.
Gina nodded. "I believe so, and Lady Yuna has come to agree with me. She is to the south, gathering allies on the islands, while Sir Wakka, Dame Lulu, and I are seeing to Bevelle. I was told of Remiem Temple by a maester and thought to pay my respects to the fayth, while the Yevon clergy use their long reach to manage their neighbours." She quirked her lips with a mocking smile. "It's seems a bit lazy, I guess, to leave the grunt work to others, but only fools refuse help when it is given."
Belgemine smiled at that. "Yes. And...may I serve?"
Gina shook her head, her mouth twisting down. "No, though I wish I could tell you otherwise. We intend to perform a mass-sending upon Sin, for his body is made up of pyreflies. Were you to attempt to join in the dance..."
Belgemine stared down at her hands for a long moment, leaving a heavy silence between them. Gina heard Wakka shifting behind her, restless, and Lulu lightly smacking him to make him stop, but none of them interrupted the unsent summoner.
Finally Belgemine looked up, her eyes bright with the fire of determination that seemed to burn in everyone capable of the sending that Gina had spoken to after they'd heard Tidus' idea. "To leave this world while working to end the suffering of Spira, that is the very thing I once gave my all for. I'd resigned myself to only ever serving as a teacher to others seeking that same glory, but to have that chance again... Lady Gina, I do not know how much use I might be in Spira's greatest dance, but I would be honoured if you would allow me to take what steps I am able."
Gina offered a hand to Belgemine, smiling gratefully. "Lady Belgemine, it would be an honour to have you send by my side, and I am certain Lady Yuna would say the same, were she here."
"Thank you," Belgemine whispered, clasping Gina's hand in her own.
Gina inclined her head, then carefully got to her feet, with a little help from Lulu. Wakka politely offered Belgemine assistance rising, and she took it with a smile.
"Now," Gina said, looking towards the door on the far end of the cavernous room, where she could sense a fayth lay, "it seems I've one more ally to gather here."
"I expect they will be most agreeable," Belgemine replied with a smile.
Gina nodded and left the two guardians and the other summoner to amuse themselves while she communed with the fayth.
The Magus Sisters – Cindy, Mindy, and Sandy – were quite willing to join with her, Sandy saying, "We were raised on the stories of your glorious battle with Sin; to fight at your side would be the dream we could never have hoped for."
Talk of dreams reminded Gina of Tidus and the talk she'd had with Bahamut's fayth. It was a fight to keep from frowning when she left the fayth's room, and it was clear she'd failed when Lulu called, "Lady Gina?"
Gina shook her head, wishing the action would shake away her troubling thoughts, too. "A passing thought, don't mind me." She forced a smile for her gathered audience. "You said something about an Al Bhed travel agency in the centre of the Calm Lands?"
"Yeah?" Wakka replied, looking uncertain. "What about it?"
"Our guide did say we'd have to jump down into the plateau and go the long way back to the entrance to the northern part of Macalania Woods," Lulu realised. "It wouldn't be that far out of our way to stop by the travel agency and pass on the news to them."
Gina nodded. "We left Lord Isaaru and Lady Dona in Bevelle when we left for Zanarkand, both needing to backtrack a bit; there is a possibility we may run into one or both of them around the travel agency."
"Oh, yeah, I suppose it's worth a try, then?" Wakka agreed.
"I'm afraid we don't have an extra chocobo," Lulu offered to Belgemine.
The unsent summoner inclined her head. "There are many chocobos that live on this side of the ravine, taking shelter under the temple during the rare storm; it will not be difficult to gather one."
"Wonderful. Shall we head out, then?" Gina suggested and they left together.
1 - Otherworld ||| 2 - Neither Friend Nor Foe ||| 3 - Sometimes Good-Bye is a Second Chance
4 - Heaven Sent a Hurricane ||| 5 - My Secrets Become Your Truth ||| 6 - Every Clap of Thunder
7 - Throw Your World Away (For Love) ||| 8 - Poisonous Drugs of Hate ||| 9 - Wisdom, Justice, & Love
10 - Turning on a Dime ||| 11 - Kings and Queens of Promise |||
13 - ???
Incomplete
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