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year 5, quarter 3
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Life is but a passing dream but the death that follows is eternal
"Mother. I wish you were here still."
Seymour knelt in the skeletal ruins of the dead city of machina. Crumbled columns of stone towered around him. Husks of long-dead and rusted machines loomed on the horizon, illuminated by the fiery glow of the setting sun. Somewhere in the distance, some monstrous beast wailed. But here, in the ancient temple, Seymour was alone. Except for the fayth.
His mother’s fayth lay twisted in front of him, encased in glowing light. She was visible still, recognizable as the mother he had loved. Anima. Pyreflies danced and flickered around them, darting in and out of his blue hair. Seymour reached forward, bending his head in silent thought as he touched the cool surface of Anima’s fayth. The glow seemed to pulse beneath his long fingers.
“Braska’s calm has begun,” he told her, even though she couldn’t listen. There was no one else he could talk to. “Father called me back home. Apparently I’m no longer an abomination but I don’t trust him. Or the Guado. Or the other priests. One day, I’ll make sure they all respect me, mother. They’ll bow before me. And you’ll be at my side, as fearsome Anima.”
The world suddenly fractured around him. His fingers curled against the smooth surface as he cried out in pain and his vision went black. His other hand grasped the pole of his staff. Everything spun. The wind howled. Reality broke completely around him. What is happening? This was unlike anything Seymour had ever experienced.
Then just as suddenly as it began, the world calmed again. The wind died to a gentle breeze. His eyes were shut tight still, but he smelled… forest. Greenery. Dank and damp. The ground beneath his knees was wet. A crow cawed in the distance, solitary and ominous. Beneath his hands, Seymour still felt the cool surface of his mother’s fayth. And that feeling gave him the strength to open his eyes.
Zanarkand was gone. There were no ruins. No machina husks. No signs a city had ever been here. None, save for the fayth, his mother’s eternal prison. Seymour stared around at the dark, dank forest closing in around him. It was a wild and untamed place, much like the forest surrounding Guadosalam. But this place was darker. An ancient evil seemed to rest in the shadows here.
He stood, brushing mud and greenery from his purple robe. He fought through the wave of dizziness and steadied himself on a tree as the world threatened to go black again. Was this the future? he wondered hazily. A Zanarkand entirely reclaimed by the land and devoid of any hint of machina influence? Had he been transported in time to a place beyond thought?
The crow called again. A large beast growled and stomped through the trees, shaking the leaves as it went. Seymour turned to look at his mother’s fayth. It was too exposed. Too alien in this landscape of green and brown. Hastily, he covered it as best he could, mounding dirt and leaves to hide its ethereal glow. Stones piled around it. When he was done, it was still obviously something was there but it looked less stark and obvious.
Then the pyreflies began to dance again. They’d disappeared, at first. But now they frenzied around his head, darted to and fro through his staff. They moved where he moved, following him and not the fayth. Were they all the unsent? Were they all killed in this forest? Seymour tried to swat them away, but the glowing orbs grew more and more agitated.
“I’ll return, mother,” he promised and set off into the forest, the glowing army following him. He could perform the sending, but not so close to the fayth. Just in case. In this strange place or time, he was glad at least of his mother’s presence. He wouldn’t risk sending her. Not yet.
In the dark gloom of the forest, away from Anima’s fayth, Seymour brandished his staff. He closed his eyes and remembered all he had been taught, all his training as a summoner on Baaj Island. He didn’t know what these pyreflies represented, but it was clear they needed sending. He stood in the center of the glowing army and began the ancient ritual. They frenzied and flitted through his staff as he worked.
Then it was over. Seymour opened his eyes and he was alone in the dark. The pyreflies had all disappeared, leaving behind a shadowed, gloomy land. The noises of beasts echoed through the woods. They sounded like they were getting closer. Fear started to spike in him, despite how hard he tried to keep the emotion at bay. He couldn’t stop the shudder that went through him at the loud bellow and stomp of a creature too close for comfort. He prayed that his mother’s fayth would remain unharmed.
Then he wasn’t alone.
There, just beyond the gnarled trunk of a moss-covered tree.
It was her.
Seymour fell to his knees heavily, squelching into the mud. He gave a strangled sob as the woman walked towards him. She looked unaged, even by a day. She still wore the same outfit of purple and white and her black hair was unchanged. “Mother,” he cried as she approached, looking like his last memory of her in Zanarkand when she died to become his final aeon.
“My son,” her voice brought tears to his eyes. It was gentle and soothing, the sound of a beloved memory. “I’m so sorry, Seymour. I never wished for this life for you. I’m sorry.”
This isn’t real. This can’t be real. She’s dead. I saw her die.
But it felt real. She felt real.
“I miss you,” he sobbed, releasing his emotions in a way he rarely had. “I hate that you’re gone. I hate that father let you die. I hate… I hate everything now. After you died.”
“I know, my son. I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.”
As soon as she appeared, she was gone again, disappearing back into the forest shadows. Seymour kneeled in the mud, numb to the world around and cried. He cried like he was that kid again, watching his mother sacrifice herself to try to save the world.
And he hadn’t saved the world. He hadn’t even tried.
Seymour wasn’t sure how much time had passed when he heard the soft footfalls of someone or something approaching. He wiped away the tears with the sleeve of his robe, but he knew his sorrow and shame would still be obvious. The mask of strength and arrogance he’d cultivated for years was shattered in this strange land or time, surrounded by the ghosts of his past.
After separating from Kuja, Yuna found that she was more comfortable in navigating the forest now. It didn’t seem quite so dark after talking to someone who had led her back to the path, and although the illusions continued, Yuna did her best to to keep her eyes facing ahead of her. She knew better than anyone that her father or Tidus couldn’t possibly be here--and even if they were, it would be a cruel trick for them to appear in the forest known best for hoodwinking travelers and leading them astray. Yuna had been trapped in Zephon for a long time now, and if she had learned anything, it was that there was no one else from Spira here that she knew yet. No one but her, as lonely as that was sometimes.
Gripping her staff close to her body, Yuna did her best to focus on other things as she traveled down the path. The sunlight filtered through the leaves in beautiful patterns that shimmered across the forest floor, and she turned her face upwards to catch a few of the sun’s rays that managed to break through the gaps between trees. She wondered if this place bore any resemblance to the Macalania Woods, but she still couldn’t recall enough of her journey to say one way or the other. Truthfully, Yuna was so frustrated at this point by her inability to recall most of her pilgrimage. She had encountered enough clues by this point to conclude that she had finished her journey, and she had been desperately hoping that something would emerge to spark her memory.
But however far she traveled and however many people she met in this world, nothing had quite pushed her far enough yet.
Yuna had been traveling along the path for a few hours, and she was just considering stopping for a water break when she heard the sound of soft sobs in the thicket of trees to her left. Freezing to a halt, Yuna briefly considered the possibility that it was another illusion--Kuja had warned her that the forest sought to lure people off the safety of the path after all--but it was so different than anything else she had encountered so far. The forest had been attacking her with her memories (perhaps it was a reaction from pyreflies like in the farplane back home?) but she couldn’t ever remember hearing a man cry like what she was hearing.
Even if it was a trick, Yuna couldn’t ever ignore the possibility of someone in trouble.
Steeling herself, Yuna threw herself off the path, lifting her skirt so it wouldn’t catch on the underbrush as she stepped between the trees. It felt darker out here, and far more sinister. No light could breach the trees this far out, and she heard the calls of beasts and fiends that she had somehow remained blissfully unaware of while she had been on the path. The crying had ceased, so Yuna gripped her staff tighter and followed a direction on instinct until she finally stepped into a clearing and found herself facing a boy with extremely distinctive blue hair. Gasping, Yuna took a step back and pressed a hand to her mouth as her eyes skipped between that styled hair and his open robes that exposed the tattoos on his chest.
“Maester Seymour,” she finally managed to breathe once the shock had worn off of seeing a familiar face. Remembering her manners, she brought her hands together in the traditional Yevon prayer before bowing deeply to him. Still, as she stared at the forest floor, she couldn’t help but think that something was wrong. His cheeks were rounder than she remembered, and his body smaller.
Even more concerning, seeing his face had struck her with as much dread as a bucket of cold water poured over her face, but the way her fingers trembled on her staff made no sense to her. Maester Seymour had been nothing but courteous to her and her guardians on the pieces of her pilgrimage that she could remember. She owed him the respect due to him as a Maester of Yevon, even if her instincts were urging her to run in the other direction.
“I’m so glad to have found you,” she said instead, creeping closer from across the clearing. “I’ve met others from Spira, but...no one that I knew. Not even my guardians.” She gave him a small smile before finally catching how red his eyes were. Her concern immediately spiked. Had he been the one crying?
“Are you hurt?” Yuna forgot her unease in favor of crouching down next to him. “I know that...your white magic is better than mine. But please. Let me help.”
Life is but a passing dream but the death that follows is eternal
“Maester Seymour.”
Seymour stared at the young woman emerging from the dense, dark forest. He watched in confusion as she performed the traditional Yevon prayer and bowed to him.
Maester?
His father was a maester. He was no maester. He was barely even a priest. But, out of habit rather than intention, he performed the same prayer in return to the woman who somehow knew his name but not his proper title. His mother hadn’t been real, no matter how real she’d seemed. She had to be some hallucination of his mind, some evil trick of magic. This young woman before him probably was too.
But there was something about her that looked more solid. Her footsteps made soft crunching sounds through the leaf cover. In retrospect, his mother’s had not. Her shoulder-length brown hair rustled in the breeze. His mother’s had not moved. Seymour blinked several times, confused and disoriented. This woman was real. Incongruously, she knew him. Or thought she did.
She spoke again, in a soft and hopeful voice. She spoke of Spira and guardians. So she was a summoner? If she had guardians, she must be. There was something about her that looked almost familiar. Maybe it was the shape of her face or the color of her hair. But her eyes? Seymour would have remembered her two-colored eyes. No one he’d ever encountered had one blue and one green eye.
“I am unhurt!” He flinched away as she crouched beside him on the forest floor. “I don’t need help,” he added roughly and pulled himself to his feet. It was beyond shameful that anyone had borne any witness to his breakdown. This wasn’t him. This sobbing little boy wasn’t him. Not anymore. He straightened his robes and clutched his staff like his life depended on it.
“Who are you? Why do you act as if you know me? I don’t know you.”
Maester Seymour returned her bow in greeting, but something about him still struck Yuna as wrong. It was very subtle--his face a little rounder, his shoulders a little less broad, his hair a little shorter. She would almost have said that he looked younger somehow, but that was ridiculous. Even the unsent couldn’t turn back their age.
Still, Yuna didn’t have much time to contemplate what was so off about his appearance. He pulled away from her touch roughly and hauled himself to his feet, proclaiming that he didn’t need any help. Yuna was left blinking up at him, deciding that his height didn’t seem to have changed any at least. He still towered over her, which was enough to spike her anxiety again, even if she did her best to push it away. She was certain that he meant no harm. If only she could convince whatever small piece of herself wasn’t so sure.
“I’m sorry. I meant no offense.” Gripping her staff tighter between her fingers, Yuna rose to her own feet. Dirt and a few cloying leaves clung to her skirt around her knees, but instinct wouldn’t let her brush off. That would mean letting go of her staff.
Yuna forced a smile to her face despite her own unease, though it slipped slightly when Seymour asked who she even was. “You...don’t remember me?” Maybe that wasn’t so surprising. Yuna herself had a hard time piecing together what had happened on her pilgrimage. Still, she had made a lot of progress since waking up on Zephon. Where once she had been certain that she hadn’t even left Besaid yet, she could now remember almost everything up to visiting Guadosalam with her guardians. Maybe Seymour would show the same amount of progress, though Yuna suddenly wished she hadn’t remembered Guadosalam at this moment. Her cheeks were probably bright red.
“I’ve been having problems remembering everything too. Since I first woke up here,” she confessed as she twisted her staff between her fingers. “Maybe we can compare information? To see what we know?” She gave him a slight smile before deciding to go ahead.
“My name’s Yuna. I come from the isle of Besaid and I’m a summoner. My...father was Lord Braska.” She normally didn’t like to bring that fact up in casual conversation. It sounded like a boast, and she had always wanted to stand on her own two feet as a summoner. Still, in this situation, she thought that it might help him to place where he knew her. “I met you on my pilgrimage. You were...very courteous to me and my guardians. You let us pass once during an operation when even other summoners were forbidden from the road. You also-...”You asked me to marry you? Yuna lost her courage to say it as she felt her face grow hot.
“You hosted us in your home,” she said instead, dropping her eyes to the side. Sir Auron always said that she was a terrible liar, even if this was only a half-truth. “In Guadosalam.”
Life is but a passing dream but the death that follows is eternal
He stared at the woman. Her words, spoken in a soft, gentle voice made no sense. Nothing about her made sense. It didn’t make sense that she greeted him like an old acquaintance. Nor did it make sense that she was tense and awkward as she stood there before him. What had he supposedly done to this mystery woman to make her so uncomfortable and stiff? What about him made her cheeks flame red? Seymour curled his long fingers around his staff and gripped tight, anchoring himself to the one normal thing in this strange place.
The young woman fidgeted when she continued to speak. Seymour still felt the tension in the air and he stayed silent as she mentioned memory problems of her own. Was that it? Maybe she was someone he used to know. But, Seymour didn’t exactly know many people. And even fewer humans. And he remembered everything else, Baaj and Zanarkand, Guadosalam and Bevelle. His memories of his father were intact, and the memories of his mother were as painful as ever.
She smiled at him and he was caught off guard. Was she a...friend? Or was she just naturally kind? She introduced herself as Yuna, apparently deciding to take it in stride that he had no idea who she was. She was a summoner, which wasn’t surprising given her staff. It looked much like Seymour’s. He was surprised to learn she came from Besaid. The island was small and provincial and she seemed quite worldly. But who was he to judge? Baaj was smaller than Besaid, and far less populated.
Seymour stumbled at her next words and his mouth gaped open. Was there anything she could have said that was more shocking? My father was Lord Braska. That made even less sense than everything else. He just stared at her as she continued talking. He could barely concentrate on the rest of her words, still struggling with how this woman could possibly be the daughter of Lord Braska. Did Braska have children? He struggled to remember what he knew of the summoner who’d sacrificed himself for Spira’s latest Calm.
It had been less than a year since Braska’s Calm started and Seymour’s long exile finally ended. His father had brought him to Bevelle after collecting him from Baaj to hear Maester Mika speak. The Grand Maester commemorated Braska and his guardians, Jecht and Auron. Had he mentioned a child Braska left behind? Seymour vaguely remembered someone about a child in Mika’s speech. But that child couldn’t be the young woman standing before him. Braska couldn’t even have been old enough to have a child her age! Yuna had to be nearly the same age as Seymour himself.
Seymour continued to grasp his staff tight in one hand as if his life depended on it. He clutched his throbbing temple in his other hand as pain shot through his head. Maybe this was all some terrible dream, or some trick of the fayth in Zanarkand. But everything about Yuna seemed painfully real. He tried to refocus on her as she finished speaking. She was blushing again, though he had no idea why. Her eyes dropped from his when she said that he hosted her in Guadosalam. She fell silent and Seymour couldn’t help but continue to gawk at her for a moment.
“There is no way you can be a child of Braska,” his voice was hoarse. “That makes no sense. You must be nearing twenty. Braska’s Calm started less than a year ago! He was growing more and more agitated, unable to comprehend the strange trajectory his day had taken. Seymour backed away from Yuna into a massive tree with branches that drooped nearly to the ground. They clawed at his face and hair.
“Who are you? Were you sent to test me? Is this my father’s doing?” Seymour hated himself for it, but he felt tears welling in the corners of his eyes. He tried to reign in his emotions, but he was raw and ragged after seeing the ghost of his mother. “Where am I?” his voice was disgusting and weak to his own ears, a plea.
Seymour’s face went through a mix of different emotions as she spoke, and Yuna wasn’t entirely surprised when the one he settled on was denial. To someone first waking up in this place, her story must have seemed crazy. It would have sounded far-fetched even if he had remembered who she was, but she wasn’t aware of just how different their starting points were until he proclaimed that there was no way that Braska could be her father.
“One...year?” Yuna stared at him, raising one hand to her mouth in shock. Seymour was upset, and she knew that she should have been trying to comfort him as he backed away, but she was too busy trying to make sense of what he’d said. Was it possible that his memory problems had robbed him of that much time? Over a decade? Or was something else at play here? She didn't want to, but she was forced to uneasily remember how much younger he seemed to look.
Seymour was starting to panic, which was the only thing that could have shaken Yuna out of her stupor. Biting her lip, she gripped her staff almost painfully hard between her fingers as she looked down at the tall grass between them. “I’m sorry,” she murmured at his frantic questions. What was she to tell him? That his father was dead? She couldn’t do that to him. At least not yet.
“My father defeated Sin ten years ago,” Yuna finally said, looking up to meet his eyes. He deserved that at least. “His calm has ended, but I want to do all I can to continue it.”Wanted. Yuna had been stranded here long enough that she had adjusted to a life without that sacrifice waiting for her at the end of her story, but it was so easy to slip back into her old way of speaking with Seymour here in front of her.
“I...know how it must sound. But I haven’t lied to you.” Yuna looked him over a little uncertainly before doing her best to give him a small smile. “But I believe you too.” She had heard stranger tales after all, and she didn’t mind sharing that. “One of my father’s guardians. And his son. They always said they were from Zanarkand, and I believed their stories. If...Sin can do that to them. Bring them to our Spira. Then I believe that it could again.”
Yuna hesitated, deciding that piece of information might be more than he could handle right now. Still, he had asked where they were, and she owed him an answer, if not quite an explanation.
“This is the Headstone Forest. It’s not generally seen as safe by the local people,” she said gently. “The closest town is Provo. I can take you there.” Truthfully, Yuna had just come from that direction, and she was supposed to be making her way to the Crystalus Divider, but this seemed much more important now. It had been so long since she’d seen someone else from Spira after all, even if they came from the past.
Life is but a passing dream but the death that follows is eternal
Seymour leaned against the tree, feeling the rough bark against his back. He stared at Yuna, trying to make sense of what he was seeing and of what she was saying. She looked as horrified as he felt when he said Braska’s Calm only began a year ago. Her face was stunned and she didn’t look up at him when she murmured an apology. He tried to calm down, he tried to focus. But his mind was a whirling mess and panic threatened to consume him.
Ten years.
Seymour’s mouth fell open in shock. He didn’t have anything he could say to that, so he just stared at her. Ten years since Braska defeated Sin? That could explain her age. But Seymour didn’t feel ten years older. He didn’t feel any older than his nineteen years. A glance at his hands said they didn’t look any older either.
Yuna continued speaking in a soft, calming voice. She told him about her father’s guardian, supposedly coming from Zanarkand. He tried to remember anything about Auron or Jeckt, but he couldn’t conjure enough memory about either guardian to know which one she spoke of. Perhaps this was the work of Sin? Seymour had heard of Sin’s toxin doing strange things to the few people who survived it. Had Sin been in Zanarkand that day and Seymour just didn’t remember it?
She explained that the forest was called the Headstone Forest, and that a town called Provo was nearby. None of the words sounded familiar to Seymour and he tried to wrap his mind around them. But, slowly, as he listened to her speak and as he looked around the foreboding forest, the panic began to ebb. He angrily wiped at his eyes with the long sleeve of his robe and forced himself upright, fighting against the dangling tree branches to face her.
“Do you mean to say we are no longer in Spira? I don’t recognize the name Provo.” He looked around them, suddenly swept up by a new emotion. Curiosity. “Is…” he started softly, but trailed off and stared into her two-toned eyes. “Is Sin here? Yevon?” he asked in a soft voice, as if the entities could hear him if he spoke too loud.“Please, tell me,” he pleaded with her, sensing there was information she was holding back.
Yuna had wanted to share information a little slower with Seymour after his bad reaction earlier, but it seemed that he had read between the lines of what she wasn’t saying. Yuna had hoped he would let it go until he could calm down, but she wasn’t really surprised that he wanted answers immediately either. It was tough to become a maester. A man didn’t become one by putting their head down and hiding. If Seymour thought that he could handle the truth now, then Yuna would have to trust his judgement. She owed him that much after all the help that he’d given her on her pilgrimage. At least what she could remember of it.
“No. This isn’t Spira.” She tried to break the news gently, but there really wasn’t any easier way to say it. “I know how it sounds, but...there are others like us. People from other places who just showed up here, I mean. Without knowing why.” A slight smile crossed her face as she tried to dispel the first suspicion he might have had about that. “Honestly, I thought at first that I was dead and that this was the Farplane, but no one else even knew what I was talking about when I said that.”
Her admission that the Farplane didn’t strictly exist here probably answered Seymour’s second question in itself, but Yuna bit her lip anyway as she thought about the best way to address it directly. “No,” she admitted again, her fingers going a little slack around her staff. “There are still a few aeons, but they’re different from ours. Everything else…”
It occurred to her that Seymour may be the first person to truly understand how bizarre peace was for her, because it would be the same for him. This world had its own problems of course--Yuna’s several run-ins with Ardyn came to mind--but everything felt so manageable compared to the beast that had been their punishment for over a thousand years.
“I wanted a world without Sin so badly. But this wasn’t what I prayed for.” She smiled at him a little sadly, deciding that she was grateful for his presence even if her initial reaction suggested that what she couldn’t remember about him was important. There was time for that later. “I was hoping you might have some news about home, but...that's not the most important thing I suppose. How are you feeling?”
Life is but a passing dream but the death that follows is eternal
Yuna confirmed his suspicions. Somehow, someway, they were no longer in Spira. This place he found himself in was somewhere entirely new, entirely unknown to him. Anyone he’d ever known… they weren’t here. No Jyscall breathing down his neck, constantly disappointed by anything his son did. No maesters, looking at him in disdain and hatred. He was caught up in amazement, even possibly joy. Yuna was still speaking, trying to explain that it was true even though it seemed crazy, even though it was completely unknown and unheard of.
Seymour didn’t care. He didn’t care how crazy it was that they were in a new world, he just cared that it was new and different. And here, he could have a fresh start without the expectations and baggage from his father and the priesthood. And when Yuna said that the Farplane didn’t exist, he wanted to laugh aloud in a crazed type of joy. She confirmed that Sin and Yevon weren’t forces here. They had no power here, no all-encompassing omnipotence.
“What I saw… earlier? Were those sights not real? A hallucination? I saw pyreflies, but if you say the Farplane doesn’t exist… That means they cannot either.” He didn’t add in the visions and conversation with his mother. He already knew that she couldn’t truly be here, she was merely a ghost of his memory.
He could barely believe everything the summoner was telling him. It was somehow everything he had ever dreamed and prayed for, but in a way he had never expected. Yuna seemed almost to read his thoughts, echoing the sentiment. For two people who grew up constantly in the shadow of Sin, this was truly a world they could have never anticipated. Yuna’s entire life had been shaped by the menace of Sin, just as Seymour’s had. And now, they were free. Free of the pain, the loss, and the fear.
Seymour extricated himself from clawing branches of the tree and reigned in his emotions. He gripped his staff tight and stepped towards Yuna as she asked how he was feeling. That was an interesting question, wasn’t it? How could he possibly put his torrent of raging emotions into coherent words? He grappled with the words and his emotions for a moment, before finally responding. “I think I feel a truer happiness than I have ever known. To learn that this is a world untainted by Sin and uncontrolled by Yevon. I am happy. This is better than I could have ever dreamed.” He let a smile curve his lips. It wasn’t something he was used to doing, but the situation warranted it. “And I hope I don’t wake and find that this is merely a dream.”
Seymour’s expression wasn’t one that Yuna had expected. They were away from everything that they’d ever known on Spira, so she’d anticipated a little fear or depression at the news--if not outright disbelief. Instead Seymour looked genuinely happy in a way she’d ever seen before. Yuna had only ever known him when he wore the serene mask of a maester, but she found that she liked this younger and more vulnerable version. It felt more real somehow.
Yuna wasn’t sure what sights Seymour was referring to in his question, but she nodded a little ruefully when he mentioned hallucinations. “This forest is...somewhat known for leading travelers astray. I see them too. They can be really convincing even if you know they aren’t real...” Seymour really was unlucky that he’d woken up here first instead of in a city. Yuna didn’t even want to think about what might have happened if he hadn’t found anyone to explain to him what was going on. He might have ended up lost in the dark forest for months.
The blue-haired man finally extricated himself from the trees and approached her, and Yuna was struck again by how tall he was, though she felt it would be rude to say anything about it. Still, she couldn’t help the slight laugh that escaped her at how happy he was, before she touched a hand to her mouth and did her best to compose herself. Even if he wasn’t a maester yet, he would be one day, and they usually valued staying calm.
“I’m sorry. This just...isn’t at all what I expected when I first saw you,” she admitted honestly, smiling slightly when he did the same. “I mean, of course a place without Sin is wonderful, but I never thought I’d hear a maester talk so fondly of a wold without Yevon.” Not that Yuna blamed him for it. Truthfully she’d been getting her own doubts during what she could remember of her pilgrimage, but she’d only suspected that Seymour might share some of them. Operation Mi’ihen had shown that he didn’t always agree with the ban on machina, for example, or at least that he empathized with how badly the Crusaders wanted the plan to succeed. Even with its disastrous ending, Yuna had a lot of respect for him after that.
“I guess we’ll have to see then. Where this dream ends.” She gave him another small smile before adjusting the grip that she had on her staff. “Do you want to come with me back to Provo?” She wasn’t sure what other options he had at this point besides waiting for someone else to come along, but it still felt polite to offer.
“Your magic was some of the best I’d ever seen back home, and I’m sure there will be fiends and more visions on the way out.” Yuna hesitated slightly before glancing up at him. “And...I’d be interested. To hear what you remember. I don’t think my memories are complete either…”
