Welcome to Adventu, your final fantasy rp haven. adventu focuses on both canon and original characters from different worlds and timelines that have all been pulled to the world of zephon: a familiar final fantasy-styled land where all adventurers will fight, explore, and make new personal connections.
at adventu, we believe that colorful story and plots far outweigh the need for a battle system. rp should be about the writing, the fun, and the creativity. you will see that the only system on our site is the encouragement to create amazing adventures with other members. welcome to adventu... how will you arrive?
year 5, quarter 3
Welcome one and all to our beautiful new skin! This marks the visual era of Adventu 4.0, our 4th and by far best design we've had. 3.0 suited our needs for a very long time, but as things are evolving around the site (and all for the better thanks to all of you), it was time for a new, sleek change. The Resource Site celebrity Pharaoh Leep was the amazing mastermind behind this with minor collaborations from your resident moogle. It's one-of-a-kind and suited specifically for Adventu. Click the image for a super easy new skin guide for a visual tour!
Final Fantasy Adventu is a roleplaying forum inspired by the Final Fantasy series. Images on the site are edited by KUPO of FF:A with all source material belonging to their respective artists (i.e. Square Enix, Pixiv Fantasia, etc). The board lyrics are from the Final Fantasy song "Otherworld" composed by Nobuo Uematsu and arranged by The Black Mages II.
The current skin was made by Pharaoh Leap of Pixel Perfect. Outside of that, individual posts and characters belong to their creators, and we claim no ownership to what which is not ours. Thank you for stopping by.
She hadn’t noticed him watching her from above. She’d lied for him. She’d covered for his atrocities, and as she’d been led away, she’d looked back for him. Aera. The name threatened a scowl at his lips. Aera, Aera, Aera.
How often had he seen her visage flickering at the edge of his sight? How long had she haunted the dreams he no longer needed? She was all he’d held onto in that eternity of darkness. Love and hate and then love again. After so long, her image had soured at the back of his tongue.
And then he’d found her.
He hummed a short laugh as he rounded a night-shrouded street corner. The people here fled before the shadows of the flickering lamplight, and he reveled in it. This was his natural place -- not bathed in her love but lulling along his own twisted path. At the whims of the gods, she would live again. How fickle they truly were.
He found himself before a thick oaken front inlaid with smoky glass and the rolling smell of liquor. He peered inside its dim spaces. People. They flocked to their vices as well as they ever had and ever would. Like an invariable instinct, Ardyn felt himself drawn to it. He thrust the door open and stepped inside.
No one looked at him. At most, they merely glanced in his direction before returning to their warm ales and shot glasses. Ardyn strolled idly to the front, perched on a stool, and leaned one elbow against the counter, head propped against his hand.
”If you’d be so kind.” He tapped his fingers against his cheek in short succession. ”Wine. The bottle if you would.” The barkeep asked his preferences (something red and bitter) before shooting him an odd look and acquiescing to his request. The bottle came in short order, and he poured it into a long-stemmed glass.
He brought the wine to his lips and sighed at its earthen must. Could he still drink his troubles away? He’d find out soon enough.
Yuna didn’t normally stray out so late at night, but she had been in so much turmoil after she had woken up to find Aera missing along with a chunk of her money that she had needed the air. That had been hours ago. She wasn’t even sure what time it was anymore.
Yuna pressed a hand to her mouth, hot tears pricking at the corners of her eyes as she wondered what she’d done to lose her trust. She’d immediately suspected that the blonde woman had managed to find Ardyn, but maybe she should have pressed her harder for answers. If she’d run off with him, then Yuna doubted that she’d ever see her again. She was gone, and Yuna had accomplished nothing here except to lose even more of Caius’ money. She felt so stupid. She should never have told Aera to come to Provo. She should never have ignored Caius’ advice to stay away. How was she even supposed to face the rest of the Dragonblades after this? She couldn’t go back to Torensten like this. She felt like more of mess than she had in a long time.
Her feet ached from walking, but she continued taking aimless directions until the street lamps were all that lit her path, and strange men called things to her that made her raise her chin and quickly hurry on. She wasn’t in a very nice section of Provo anymore, but that was what she wanted. She refused to go back to the room that she’d shared with Aera yet. She needed more time.
It was the flash of red under the lamplight ahead of her that made her gasp and pull out of her self-misery.
Clapping a hand over her mouth, Yuna drew back into the shadows as she stared at the man down the street who was considering the sign on a building. Ardyn. There was no mistaking his mismatched collection of clothing or his wild red hair even from this distance. Her heartbeat picked up until she was afraid that he might be able to hear it from down the street, but he didn’t so much as glance her way as he opened the door and slipped inside, his coat trailing out behind him.
As soon as the door clicked shut behind him, Yuna let out a sharp breath and wrapped her arms around herself. What should she do? She hadn’t even brought her staff with her. She’d left it back in the room, so while she always had her magic and Shiva, it would be weaker than normal if she tried to channel it against him. The only thing that she had on her was the dagger that Celes had bought her back in Torensten, and she didn’t fool herself into thinking that she could do anything with it but blindly thrust it forward. That was if she could even bring herself to try to stab him at all. Going after him now would be insanity.
And yet…what was he doing in a public space so late at night? A trickle of fear shot through Yuna, and she was walking down the street before she could talk herself out of it. If he was here looking for more victims, then she had a duty to stop him no matter how unprepared she was. She stopped only briefly to consider the building—a small, dimly-lit place with a crowd of people inside—before she pushed open the thick door and stepped inside.
A sour smell hit her like she had stepped into a cloud, and Yuna stopped just inside the door as she scanned the people clutching glasses of clear or amber liquid. Oh. This was some kind of speakeasy. She had never been in one before, but she didn’t have the time to feel uncomfortable as her eyes lit on the colorful man seated at the bar.
Ardyn sat with his back to her, and as she watched, he raised a drink to his lips that was a deeper shade of red than his hair. He stood out in a place like this, but he was still just doing the same thing as everyone else. Had he really just come here to drink alcohol? Yuna suddenly felt foolish and exposed, the suffocating atmosphere closing in on her further as a man called over to her and offered to buy her a drink. She wanted to run. She wanted to flee before he ever noticed her, but she couldn’t. As a summoner, she would never have that luxury. She had to confront things head-on.
Letting out a slow breath, Yuna did her best to center herself before approaching the bar. She didn’t take her eyes off of the red-haired man until she stopped with only a bar stool in between them.
“…Ardyn.” They had never introduced themselves during their first encounter, but she had confirmed his name with so many people at this point. “I thought that you might have left when Aera did.”
Someone approached him. A girl. He felt himself bristle with irritation that he hoped would ward her off like a second sense. He wasn’t in the mood for company nor had he the patience to reject it. Still, the girl advanced. It wasn't until she stood directly beside him that he caught the cascade of colors and jewelry that decorated her. Purples, blues, yellows, whites. He glanced to the side, eyebrows raised in surprise.
Oh.
The Oracle had changed since last they’d met. No longer was she the victim, but the pursuer. Or so it seemed. She stood with a kind of resolute determination that refused to show fear. Did she honestly expect to put him to rest? Ardyn chuckled under his breath as he shifted to face her. That laughter died as soon as she spoke.
Aera. Of course it was Aera -- what wasn’t anymore? He swirled his wine between his fingers, eyeing it moodily. Had the gods aligned their meeting or were Oracles merely drawn together? She had learned his name as well as he had learned hers. Though with less accuracy perhaps.
”I chose not to make her acquaintance.” For her own sake or had it been for his? He had no interest in motivations any longer. ”Had she not come alone, I might have thought her intentions murderous though it seems you have fared no better in her favor. She has little need for your protection.”
Or anyone’s. Aera had always been a spirit strong as the gods themselves. She forged her own path except by their whims and bowed to no will but her own.
Ardyn watched his wine pulse in waves along the glass’ edge, leaving naught but a dark stains behind it. Did he long for the Oracle’s blood? He thought he should have (had she not sought his?) but the spark had left him. What good was her death if he was in no mood to relish it? He had never been one to act without passion.
”Would you care for a drink?” he asked instead. Ardyn waved his hand towards the stool beside him before sitting up and motioning for the barkeep’s attention. ”Yoo-hoo! Another glass if you would. It seems I’ve company to keep.” Ardyn sipped his glass again, taking dark pleasure in its taste. He cast the girl a slow smile. ”I insist.”
Ardyn cast her an uninterested glance from the side before he finally turned to face her, seeming a little surprised as recognition flooded his gaze. She found it a little hard to breathe under the scrutiny of those yellow eyes, and his chuckle made something like panic rise up in her stomach. It was almost a relief when his expression soured as soon as she mentioned Aera.
“I chose not to make her acquaintance.”
Yuna frowned a little at the phrasing. Make her acquaintance? If Aera was to be believed, then they were far closer than that. Ardyn was her fiancé. Why wouldn’t he wish to see her? Still, Yuna had no desire to voice the question in fear of provoking his temper. Everyone in this bar was in danger, whether they knew it or not. She had to tread the line carefully for their sakes.
Ardyn pointed out that Aera had left without her too in such a nonchalant way that Yuna couldn’t decide if it was meant to be cruel or not. “She has little need for your protection.” Was that why Aera had left in such a final way? As little as Yuna trusted Ardyn, surely he’d know his fiancée’s personality best. Perhaps Yuna had been acting too much like a guardian when what the blonde woman had really needed was a friend. Yuna felt a little low at the realization. She of all people should have understood how that felt, and yet she’d made the same mistake that all her guardians except for Tidus often had. She only hoped that she’d get the chance to make it up to Aera one day.
“She wanted to find you,” Yuna felt compelled to say. “I brought her here because she wouldn’t take no for an answer.” Even the unsent had their weak spots. Judging from how quickly his expression had changed at the blonde woman’s name, Yuna was guessing that Aera was his. Still, it didn’t change what she had to do here.
Just as quickly as his mood had shifted, he once again became the jovial man that she’d met in a hospital hallway. He gestured for the bartender to bring over another glass of wine while he shot her a smile that made her skin crawl. “I insist.”
“What?” Yuna felt her cheeks grow a little hot as her eyes darted between him and the wine and the bar around them, as if someone would come to her rescue. “Why would you want-?...I’ve never-…” She forced herself to stop talking as her initial embarrassment faded and she realized that he was likely just needling her. The entire situation was so uncomfortable that she wanted to turn and run from the building, but she had the feeling that showing weakness in front of him would be like wading out into the ocean while Sin was approaching. Ardyn wanted to see her squirm. That was all. She couldn’t run, and she couldn’t admit that she’d never had so much as a sip of alcohol before. She was trapped.
Reluctantly, Yuna eased herself down on the stool, hoping that he wouldn’t notice when she dragged it a few inches further away from him first. Her eyes lit on the glass of wine that the bartender had placed in front of her, and it resembled so strongly a glass of dark blood that it looked entirely unappetizing. She made no move to touch it yet.
“…You really only came here to drink?” She asked quietly, glancing at him out of the corner of her eye as she dug her nails into her skirt over her knees. It didn’t change what he’d done. He was still a fiend who needed to be sent before his next attack on the living. But it also felt impossible to attack a man who was just sitting idly next to her. Yuna wouldn’t have been in the wrong for doing so, but it would have felt like she was, and those two things could be impossible to separate sometimes.
“This doesn’t change what happened. Or that you’re an unsent,” Yuna reiterated aloud as she finally turned to face him fully. He was so much taller than her and had such a voluminous collection of clothes that it was almost hard to see the doorway past him. “But since I already learned your name. I’m Yuna.” Purely on instinct, she very nearly bowed when introducing herself, but she managed to stop herself at the last second. She wasn't comfortable with turning her back to him in any way. “I remember what you called me,” she continued softly. “And I can tell you now that I’m no Oracle.”
Ardyn merely smiled in the face of her floundering. Of course she was surprised. Surprised and likely scandalized with her proper air. Would she join him? The ball was in her court, and as the barkeep’s eyes pricked with irritation at his request, she forced the uncertainty from her expression. Had she taken the offer as a challenge? Or perhaps she merely intended to bide her time. Either way, he thought he would enjoy this. Yes, this would prove far more satisfying than her blood.
She dragged a stool to the side and perched stiffly atop it. A glass of wine clinked into place before her, and Ardyn’s smile widened. From that look of apprehension, he doubted she’d ever so much as sipped it before.
”You really only came here to drink?” Her voice was hardly more than a whisper. She knew the dangers of her situation as well as any, and she knew that she had no power here. How delightful. He sipped his glass and rolled the wine on his tongue.
”For the time being,” he said. In truth, that depended entirely on her. ”I’d think myself deserving of such vices though I’d dare say you have none of your own. Ah the cruelties of zealotry.”
He hummed to himself, tilting his head as she spoke. This didn’t change what happened. She still fully intended to kill him, and he had expected nothing else. He raised his eyebrows at her choice of words though he didn’t ask for an explanation. ’Unsent?’ He could piece together the meaning well enough.
He laughed under his breath. ”The Astrals show no favor for mortal men.” Nor immortal as it happened. All in all, they cared little for such trifles as human will. ”The Glacian did not heed your call on a whim. You are an Oracle if not in name then in practice.”
Ardyn’s gaze drifted towards the ceiling and its humming lights. ”You carry with you the Glacian’s gift. To heal the sick, guide the lost, cleanse the corrupted.” His eyes shifted to meet hers. ”I have little interest in your self-righteous aid nor in the final rest you would force upon me. Though by all means, you are welcome to try.”
It felt odd -- speaking so openly of his curse. Perhaps the day had left him introspective. He would follow his mood where it led him.
”Yuna, was it?” He drew a circle on the counter with the tip of his finger. ”You remind me of another Oracle. Resolute, unwavering, indoctrinated."Lunafreya. Yuna was the spitting image of the woman in her youth. It did little to endear her to him.
"Did you know that Aera asked that I inflict my darkness upon her?" he asked. "She has never been one for her title. To forsake the gods for my sake alone…” He smirked wryly. ”A curious thing, love.”
Love. Was that what that was? He ached with the space it had left behind.
He glanced towards her carelessly. ”You haven’t touched your drink,” he said. ”I’d dare say you could use it.”
Yuna noticed the older man’s smile widening the longer that she left her drink untouched, and it rankled her a little. He was enjoying this. Of course he was. He was a remarkably human unsent for how old he must have been, but his actions at the hospital showed that he was still becoming a fiend. She wouldn’t have expected anything else from him.
“You are an Oracle if not in name than in practice.”
“I’m a summoner,” she corrected him firmly, though she had a feeling that her explanation would be lost on him if an Oracle was the closest equivalent on his world. Ardyn seemed determined to find her to be one and determined to hate her for it, but she at least felt that she had to try. “Yes, I passed Shiva’s trial and earned her aid, but she is no god in my world. She was just a human who sacrificed herself.” From Aera’s explanation at the Crystallus Divider, it sounded like these ‘astrals’ had created their world, which made them infinitely different than aeons. Still, she did have to admit that it was curious that the two shared a name. If she lived long enough, then Yuna hoped to look into that more.
Ardyn’s gaze drifted to hers, and Yuna felt the urge to shift her stool away further at the dim glow of those yellow eyes. All the humor had fallen from his face as he said that he held no interest in the sending that she hoped to perform for him, and as Yuna hesitantly flicked her eyes up to his, she wondered if she was imagining that he looked a little more tired than he had before. The moment passed, and Yuna glanced away, watching the way the lamplight flickered on the rim of her glass.
“I wouldn’t expect you to want that,” she murmured. “There are many like you where I’m from. If you felt at peace with your death, then you wouldn’t still be here in this plane.” It felt odd to speak so openly with an unsent. She didn’t normally have many chances to talk with one so casually before she had to send them, and it felt a little ironic that she was only doing so with Ardyn because he was the most powerful that she’d ever come across.
Ardyn said her name as he compared her to an Oracle that he had once known, and Yuna didn’t really like the way that her own name dripped darkly off his lips. She liked it even less when he referred to her as indoctrinated, but she didn’t really have a chance to respond before he changed the subject to Aera again.
She blanched a bit when he casually said that the blonde woman had asked him to infect her. It sounded like Aera was doing even worse emotionally than she had thought, and Yuna frowned when Ardyn waved off such a sacrifice as love just being ‘curious.’ “Yes. It’s curious.” She dug her nails into the skirt around her knees again before continuing. “But not just with her. You didn’t do as she asked.” Perhaps that wasn’t what Ardyn had wanted her to take away from that story, but Yuna was starting to get more comfortable in treading the line with him as the conversation went on. Whether or not that was a mistake had yet to be seen.
Ardyn poked fun at her for not having touched her drink yet, and Yuna bit her tongue, her fear of him at war with her distaste for the man beside her. In a poor show of her self-control, her dislike won out.
“I knew a man like you once too.” She just wished that she could remember who, but she felt the similarity in every careless glance and insincere laugh that left her paralyzed. “Very presumptuous in who he thought I was.” She was no longer sure if she was telling off Ardyn or the man from her past whose memory made her want to curl in on herself, but either way, she lifted the glass to her lips and took a large gulp of wine.
It wasn’t the worst thing that she’d ever had, but it wasn’t very good either. For some reason, it was served warm, and the sour, bitter liquid felt heavy on her tongue as she swallowed. The aftertaste was so harsh that she shuddered a little, but she forced herself to keep going until only the dregs remained. Setting the glass back on the bar afterward, she wiped her mouth with the back of her hand as she looked over at him. “Thank you for the drink.”
It felt like something had died in her mouth, and the fumes had left her a little light-headed. Still, it was only one glass. Yuna didn’t know much about alcohol, but Ardyn had a large bottle next to him, so that must have been one serving of wine. She reasoned that one glass shouldn’t affect her mental capacity at all if that bottle was what it took to feel something.
Yuna felt like she had already lingered next to Ardyn for too long, but she couldn’t resist a question. “If I could ask,” she murmured as she tore her gaze away from the remnants of wine settling in the bottom of her glass. “If not Aera, then what keeps you from going willingly to the farplane?”
The so-called summoner did not like his suggestion. No, she didn’t like it at all.
A spark of defiance lit her eyes as she straightened, steeled herself, and seized the glass before her. Was this teenage rebellion? Ardyn smiled nostalgically as she downed it in a misguided display of her strength. Had he challenged her? He couldn’t recall suggesting much of anything except that she should join him -- and so she had. Ah, the flustered mind of a child.
His eyebrows raised as she lowered the glass. Empty. Whatever point she’d been trying to prove, he’d dare say she’d proven it. He laughed under his breath.
”It seems your need was more dire than I’d suspected,” he said. He waved vaguely towards the crowded shelves along the bar’s back wall before he paused and shook his head. ”Ah, but I’d so hate to burden the man again. I’d dare say he’s taken a dislike of me.” Instead, he pulled for his own bottle and poured it carefully into her once empty glass. ”Allow me.”
Then the mood slipped.
Ardyn didn’t know why the question lingered with him so. He knew the answer well enough (all too well -- he’d dreamed of it for millennia) but still it stalled on his lips. His thoughts turned like the last sluggish remnants of wine against a weathered glass.
”Aera perished some time ago. Far too long to linger,” he said. ”I would not be held captive by her will.”
He drained the last of his glass twirled the stem in his hand. Then he reached and poured until it was full again. The bottle was not yet half empty.
”You speak of death as though one might embrace it by choice.” Ardyn eyed his wine before he brought it to his lips. It rolled thick and bitter on his tongue. ”Perhaps that is true for most but I’ve found little say in the matter. It is as the gods will it.”
His lips twitched with malice. ”I would see them brought to their knees. If they would condemn me to darkness then they shall have it in turn.”
He sipped again. Deeper.
”You seem of the mind that you wield your righteous power for the good of all. For the public and, well, me as it were.” Ardyn eyed her over the rim of his glass before he set it back on the counter. ”You claim me presumptuous. Perhaps, but I’d think my transgressions far lesser than yours.”
”Do you believe your acts a mercy? Yourself a stern will who knows best?” Ardyn laughed under his breath. ”I’d have you spare me your condescension. I do believe myself far better aware of my position than you.”
Ardyn seemed amused by her downing of the glass of wine, and he chuckled under his breath as he reached for his own bottle rather than signaling the bartender.
“Allow me.”
Before Yuna could protest, he was refilling her empty glass, and she glanced carefully between his steady, gloved hand and the dark red liquid swirling into the bottom. If she was uncomfortable before, she was even more unnerved to be sharing a bottle with the man who had haunted her nightmares for weeks. This wasn’t at all how she thought this encounter would go when she had pictured their reunion. She had thought there would be blood, and Shiva, and more people turned into monsters just to taunt her. She had thought that she’d have to call on every spell she possessed as well as dive into whatever Celes could teach her with a dagger. And even then, she hadn’t really expected to survive, if she was being honest with herself. It was just her duty to send him or die trying.
Instead, Ardyn was being almost amiable, and something about that made her insides squirm when she looked at him. She knew very well what he was capable of, but it was impossible for her to attack a man who was just calmly sipping wine at the bar. She felt paralyzed, and she hated it.
He seemed to find her question about his motives a bit distasteful as his face went cloudy again, and her hand nervously twitched for the dagger hidden in her sash. After a moment’s pause though, Ardyn did seem to decide to answer peacefully, and a frown crossed Yuna’s face at what his words implied. Aera was dead too? Half a continent of travel together, and Yuna had never once noticed that the woman was an unsent. Still, there were more pressing things that Ardyn had said, so Yuna chose to focus on those.
“You want to kill the gods?” She echoed slowly. “Meaning…Shiva and the others?” For some reason, focusing too hard on the very idea of her aeons dying sent a spike of pain through her head, and she grimaced slightly, shooting him a surprised look when he called her arrogant for assuming to know his situation and what he needed. She’d been called similar insults by other summoners who thought that she got special treatment due to her father’s legacy, but she had never expected to hear it again in a tiny bar in Zephon by a man who wanted her dead. The absurdity of what her life had become almost made her want to giggle, but she forced that back quickly. If only the wine hadn’t left her so light-headed.
“Death is…different here than it is in Spira,” she managed instead. Hesitating slightly, she glanced over at him, deciding that while his yellow eyes gave little away, he seemed to genuinely want to know why she had taken such a personal investment in sending him. Yuna had no obligation to explain herself to him. She knew that, and yet…
Reaching out a hand, she gently took her glass in hand as she took a smaller sip of wine this time. Somehow she had expected it to taste of poison now that she was sharing a bottle with him, but if anything, the liquid went down smoother now that she was on her second glass. She wondered if this was how lobsters felt in their pots as the fire was increased so slowly that they barely noticed.
“Where I’m from, souls can rarely move on by their own will,” she murmured, gripping her glass between her fingers rather than setting it back down on the bar counter. “One of a summoner’s jobs is to send them on to the farplane so they can find rest. If they stay, they normally just become fiends who prey on humans. But sometimes…if a person is particularly strong-willed or has a strong enough desire to stay, then they do retain themselves completely. But their humanity becomes more and more warped over time.” She refrained from looking at Ardyn as she took another sip of wine to steady herself.
“When we first met, Aera couldn’t talk enough about what a good man you were. And I believe that. I really do.” Yuna finally looked over to him, adjusting her sleeves before clasping her hands in front of her in a desire to keep them steady. “…So please. If my experiences have made me misunderstand something. Then correct me.”
She knew nothing of Eos. She knew nothing of him, nothing of the gods, nothing of his curse. She knew only that the dead should die, and of the monstrous fate of any who resisted. He felt his darkness well within him. Words he couldn’t say.
’You think I could have known death? My brother tried to give it to me. Oh, how my brother tried and how I pleaded for it! You think I wouldn’t have seized it had I the chance? You think I would have-?’
His corruption seeped from him like muddied water. In a breath, he could end her. Not end, but cast to the darkness he had known for ages. A smirk rose to his lips, slow and quiet. He gathered the shadows to his fingertips and swirled them like the wine in his glass.
”You seem quite confident of my condition. Perhaps you would care to experience it firsthand? I would be more than happy to accommodate.” He met her eye -- simmering yellow against a pale blue-green. He longed to see her fear. Oh yes, he would remind her of her position and he would revel in it. Her life was balanced at his fingertips, and they both knew it well. She would be cursed to darkness should he so much as clench his fist.
And yet he didn’t. His corruption flared, flickered, and then waned. Not now. No, for Aera he would stay his hand.
”I am no spirit,” he said. ”By the gods’ wills, I am impervious. To blades, to hunger, to time.” His fingers tightened. ”I was to be their sacrifice, and oh how they thought me to suffer. They have no love for mortal men.”
An odd sense of irony lulled within him. To speak his torment to an Oracle? An agent for the gods sought to...what was it? Send him on? In another time, he might have begged for that rebellion. Now it felt only trite.
Ardyn hummed to himself and leaned against the counter. Whatever hatred had taken him lulled in the face of his own strange humors. He leaned his cheek against his palm. ”Tell me.” His eyes drifted to the amber bottles beyond them. ”Have you known darkness?”
The hostility in Ardyn’s response took her aback far more than it should have. She knew the sort of man that he was, and yet with how pleasantly numb everything was beginning to feel, she was speaking more openly than she had before. “Confident? No, not at all. That’s why I-” Her gaze met his then, and the hatred in those gleaming yellow eyes pinned her in place. Yuna stopped talking so abruptly that she almost imagined that she could hear the click of her teeth as her mouth shut.
“Perhaps you would care to experience it firsthand? I would be more than happy to accommodate.”
Her eyes flickered to the darkness gathering at his fingertips, but she didn’t trust herself to speak. Nothing she had to say would make a difference now anyway. His temper had flared, so he would either try to turn her and this entire bar into those ‘daemons’ or he wouldn’t, but that decision no longer rested with her. The chatter of the other patrons continued around them like no one had realized that their lives were in danger, but Yuna kept her eyes on Ardyn’s, afraid to move or even to breathe. She’d go down fighting for these strangers’ lives if she had to, but that didn’t mean that she wasn’t waiting for his next move in horror.
The moment passed. The magic vanished from his fingertips, and Yuna let out a slight ragged breath as he turned to face the bar again. She hadn’t expected an explanation of all things to leave his lips immediately after that, and she frowned slightly as the words sank in. He wasn’t really dead then? The explanation was confusing since he had definitely reacted to the sending that she’d performed, but if Ardyn was to be believed, then he was simply a true immortal. She’d never encountered anything like that before, and although she took his words with a grain of salt, the possibility sent her head reeling. Still, it was his final bit of information that finally made her willing to speak again. “A sacrifice?”
The word left a bad taste in her mouth, but she wasn’t sure if she should ask for more details or not. She was walking a thin tightrope, and one wrong step was liable to turn him back into the monster that she’d met in the hospital. While she weighed both possibilities with herself, Ardyn seemed to return to his previous good humor as he once again turned his attention to the alcohol.
“Tell me. Have you known darkness?”
There was no good answer to that. It was a rhetorical question meant to back her into a corner and make her uncomfortable. She was sure of it and resented him for it as she clenched her fists in her lap. “I suppose that depends on your definition,” she murmured, keeping her eyes on the wine-stained glass in front of her. It might make him angry again, but there truly were different ways of looking at darkness. The depths of depression. The black heat of anger. “But I would say that everyone has to some extent. I’m certainly no exception.”
Her father’s death. Everytime someone implied that she’d only made it this far on her father’s legacy. The bodies that washed up on shore from Sin. Knowing that her own death came closer with each step forward. Not knowing what Sin was doing to Spira right now because she was stuck here.
Yuna knew that she shouldn’t have more wine. She needed her wits about her, and she was in the most dangerous company of her life. She should have been ready to fight him, but something in her had hurt with that last thought, so instead she snatched the glass off the bar counter and took another long drink of bitter liquid. This is what people did, right? Everyone was always so convinced that this made them feel better, so why wasn’t it working for her?
Yuna set the glass back down on the wooden countertop with a clink, her fingers clutched so tightly against the stem that she imagined that she could see her veins through the pale skin. “You’re right. I don’t understand your situation. But I do understand what it is to be a sacrifice. I was meant to die, and I would have by now if I hadn’t woken up here.”
She swiveled in her bar stool to look at Ardyn, her long earring jangling at the sudden movement. “Maybe I do take my duties too seriously now that I’m here. I’m sure that’s true. But if this was how we had met, then I wouldn’t have tried to send you.” She bit her lip, wanting to run from the bar again, but finding herself unable to until she’d said her piece.
“Even if it isn’t what you want, how do you expect me to just walk away after what I saw at the hospital?” Suddenly feeling tired, she let her hands slip from her drink as she stood up, the bar stool making a squeaking noise as it slid against the wooden floor.
“Please. No more games. Tell me your intentions.” Standing made her feel dizzier than she’d expected, and she blinked slowly as she had to grip onto the edge of the counter to stay upright. “Do you plan to toy with me until you take your leave? Or stop being so rude and finish this bottle with me? Or shall we get it over with and fight?”
