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year 5, quarter 3
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Yuna was grateful that Seymour didn’t question much about their history together. She was uncomfortable answering, not just because she couldn’t remember the bulk of their interactions, but also because what she did remember would have likely made Seymour as flustered about it as she currently felt. She didn’t relish explaining that while they had been engaged, it had been purely political on his side--or so she assumed. Not to mention that on Yuna’s end, she’d only agreed in the hope that he’d turn himself in to Yevon’s judgement for the murder of his father.
No. Yuna didn’t think that would go over well at all.
“The Crusaders,” she seized on gratefully. “Yes. You were willing to work with them and the Al Bhed for the protection of Spira. I admired that.” A safe truth. Far safer than anything else she could have said.
Maybe it was time to change the subject.
“I think you’ll like Provo,” Yuna said with a slight smile as she turned to lead them back down the path towards the exit of the headstone forest. “It’s different from Spira in every way, but...I like it. It's kind of the peacekeeper between the large nations. And it’s always so bustling that it’s easy to find work.”
Speaking of work, maybe Yuna would even offer him a place in the Dragonblades if that was something he was interested in. Caius had given her pretty free reign over the smaller Provo branch, and she’d done her best to make it more of a small band of healers than anything. She’d thought that it would compliment the fighting force that Caius and Celes had put together in Torensten really well, and healer-for-hire seemed like it would potentially be a good fit for Seymour if he wasn’t sure what to do next.
But that conversation could wait another day as well. First they had a forest to escape.
Caius pointed out that it really didn’t matter which floor they searched first, because it was part of their job to search the entire house for survivors. He was right of course, but Yuna supposed that part of her had been hoping he would suggest that they go upstairs first. Something about the dark basement with the deep gouges out of the inside part of the door was...concerning.The upstairs looked far more inviting, but that was why Yuna reluctantly turned towards the open door instead. “If I were a monster I know where I’d hide…”
Creeping towards the top of the wooden stairs, Yuna peered down below, finding that she could see the bottom but not by much. The lamps had all been left burning up above, but it didn’t look like that extended to the basement. “I don’t suppose you have a light on you?” Yuna asked Caius with a faint smile. The blond mercenary always seemed to be prepared for anything, though she supposed it did help to be able to store things inside of his glaive. For herself, Yuna remembered that there had been an extremely low-burning candle left in the center of the dining room table, so she pressed a sleeve over her face to block the smell before she dipped inside to retrieve it. The poor thing had burned for so long that it was mostly just a pool of white wax at this point, but it should serve her purposes for a few minutes at least.
Yuna made sure that Caius was ready before she held the candle out in front of her and started to descend. The tiny flicker of flame cast shadows on the stone walls around them as she carefully set one foot in front of the other on the old stairs. When she reached the bottom, she at first thought it was a dead-end, but realized after a moment that there was a sharply-curved hallway off to the right. She couldn’t even see what waited at the end of it, but she did reluctantly follow its course anyway after making sure that Caius was close at hand.
The majority of the basement stretched out before them as one open room after they’d rounded the corner, and Yuna slowly lowered the candle as she tried to take in what she was seeing. Rows of empty cages ran the length of the room. Some were large and some were small, but they’d all clearly been in use recently. The room smelled awful--blood and excrement and the general smell of beasts that she’d gotten used to during battles with fiends. Peering at the cage closest to her, Yuna examined the empty water and food dish nervously.
“...Were they breeding monsters?” Maybe Yuna was naive, but that seemed far too dangerous for whatever amount of money was involved. Who was even paying for something like that? She wasn’t sure she wanted to consider the answer.
There was a skittering sound from the far side of the basement, and Yuna lost her grip on the melting candle, wincing as it sputtered out as it hit the floor. It sounded like a few of the monsters at least had stuck around. Taking a step back, she strained to hear against the darkness. There was a clicking of hard flesh against the ground, a scuttling of pincers, and Yuna groped nervously for the wall, immediately flicking on a light switch as her hand managed to snag one.
Overhead lights flooded the room, and Yuna had to shield her eyes from the sudden glare as the creatures in front of them recoiled back as if they didn’t like the abrupt light anymore than she did. Yuna let out a tiny startled squeak at the sight of crabs that were big enough to come up to her waist.
“What are they?" It probably didn’t matter either way as Yuna held up her staff between them, but there had been nothing like these creatures on Spira.
Faris seemed as surprised as Yuna did that the sun was already dipping below the horizon. He pulled his hand back as he sat up in the water, and Yuna wasn’t entirely sure if she was grateful or sad for its absence. That had probably gone on for too long, either way. They had only known each other for a short time, after all. Still, after spending all day with Faris, Yuna suspected that behind his bravado, he’d been as lonely here as she had. Maybe that was one reason they had gravitated together. They could understand that about each other.
Faris suggested that they get back on the boat to watch it properly, and he hoisted himself up over the side without much difficulty. Yuna swam after him and eyed the height of the boat a little dubiously, shooting Faris a grateful smile when he offered her a hand. She could always try to heft herself up, but she suspected that she might make a bit of a fool of herself.
With his help, she managed to right herself on the desk of the boat, a little embarrassed by how much water spilled from the bottom of her skirt across the boards. “Let me just…” Laughing a little, Yuna wrung her skirt out over the side of the boat before letting it drop. Her white camisole was soaked through as well, but there was no helping that. It wasn’t as if she had a change of clothes. At least the black halter top she wore underneath it ensured that her outfit wouldn’t be entirely indecent until it dried.
Seating herself next to Faris in the back, Yuna turned her attention towards the horizon, making an appreciative noise when the pirate explained that the whole scene would be lit up like gold at the right moment. “It sounds beautiful,” she murmured, glancing over at the boy next to her. He looked enraptured by the sight in front of them, and something about the passion in his eyes combined with the way the sunlight glittered off of them made Yuna’s stomach flutter again. Suddenly realizing that she was paying more attention to him than the sunset, Yuna quickly turned back to the horizon.
It really was an unrivaled view. The sunsets from Besaid had been breath-taking, but it was something else entirely to be surrounded by dark waves that looked as if they were on fire from the orange glow reflecting off of them. It made Yuna a little sad to reflect on how this wouldn’t have been possible back on Spira. Sin had taken a lot of small things from her people, in addition to the obvious ones.
“...Thank you. For bringing me. I think I needed this.” Yuna smiled at Faris, before realizing that the fading light combined with the chill of the water drying on her skin had made goosebumps erupt all down her arms. Maybe it had been a little silly for her to suggest swimming after all. Now both of them would be chilly until they dried with nothing else to change into.
Determinedly watching the horizon, Yuna scooted a little closer to Faris. Their legs touched, and she tried to tell herself over the beating of her heart that it was just in case he was cold too. Everything about this was practical, and that was the story that she was sticking to.
Yuna was glad that she was able to get Seymour to laugh a little when she condemned his father. It cut the tension in the air, even if something about his chuckle made her uneasy to the point where she clasped her own hands together behind her back. More had happened between them than just the murder of Lord Jyscal--she was almost sure of it--but even recovering that much had left her fairly drained. She could always try to prod more memories of him another day. Yuna didn’t think there was any rush as long as this younger version was the one who was around. He hadn’t done anything wrong yet after all, and hopefully he never would now that he had a chance to escape Spira.
Seymour looked her over with far more curiosity after she admitted that she was only half-human too, which confirmed her suspicions about why the one from her time had taken an interest in her. Yuna had known that Seymour was only half a guado of course, but she had assumed that like everyone else, he had been inclined to give her special treatment because of who her father was. Knowing how lonely his past was, it was kind of sad to realize that maybe he had just been happy to meet someone like him.
“It was controversial, but my parents stuck by their choice until their deaths,” Yuna admitted. “The church...They pretend otherwise now, but they shunned my father when he was alive. No one thought he would defeat Sin. And when he did, they built statues of him just the same, and they kept my lineage quiet after that. Not many people know anymore, but I assume the maesters would.” It was sad really, thinking about what her life would have been if her father had cast her out like Seymour’s had. In another life, maybe their roles could have been reversed. It was harder to blame his actions when she looked at it like that.
“I hope I provided some decent help at least.”
Yuna was suddenly very interested in a spindly tree just past Seymour’s shoulder as she tried to keep her mind off the blank hole in her memories after the Thunderplains. “Oh, yes.” Everyone always told her that she was a terrible liar, but it wasn’t lying if she thought about everything before Guadosalam, right? “You helped us through closed roads, and you protected me and my guardians during a failed Crusader attack…” Yuna was going to try her best not to tell him about the marriage proposal. If he didn't remember that they'd been engaged, then that sounded like something that would be better to take to the grave.
Feeling her cheeks burn a little hot, Yuna clasped her hands together and took a step backward. “Well. I suppose we should hurry if we want to get to Provo before dark…”
Despite the cool breeze over her wet skin, Yuna felt her cheeks grow a little warmer when Faris said that she was quite the woman. She was nothing special really--particularly here where summoners weren’t known or respected. Without Sin, she was really no different than any other girl in their late teens. Or at least she didn’t think so. Truthfully, the only girls around her own age she’d ever befriended had been Rikku and now Celes. Yuna didn’t think she was nearly as fun as Rikku or as strong as Celes. That made her fairly average, didn’t it?
“How do these crystals choose their warriors of light?” Yuna asked with a laugh. “That’s quite the title! How many of you were there?” It was an interesting idea, traveling to another world with Faris. Would it be anything like Zephon? It certainly didn’t sound anything like Spira. Yuna had a hard time picturing the brash pirate fitting in back on her world, but she did her best to visualize it.
“If we were on Spira, I think you’d like the Crusaders. You’d hate the church and its rules, but the Crusaders bend them all the time. They were recently even excommunicated. They always choose the path that helps them fight Sin and protect people. No matter what anyone else thinks.” Yuna admired them for that, even if their methods weren’t always effective. Operation Mi’ihen had been a great tragedy despite everyone giving their best efforts. Yuna couldn’t stand to think about it too closely.
Faris flopped backwards and laid on his back in the water, his eyes trailing up towards the sky. Yuna wanted to tease him about getting comfortable, but she bit back her words when it became obvious that he was in a more serious mood now.
“Faris…” Yuna didn’t know the pirate well enough yet to know what would make him feel better as he spoke about everything that he’d lost, holding one arm up towards the sky as if he really could see his loved ones slipping through his fingers. The waves were drifting the lavender-haired boy away from her, and Yuna had to lightly kick after him to keep up.
“I haven’t had a day like this in a while. I wasn’t sure I would again.”
Faris’ eyes looked greener than any Al Bhed’s in the fading light, and Yuna felt something flutter in her stomach. “I wasn’t either...” She wasn’t really sure what came over her--whether it was the last glimmer of alcohol in her veins, her desire for Faris to smile again, or just the sudden realization of how lonely she’d been without her guardians--but she reached up and grasped Faris’ still outstretched hand between both of hers.
Water trickled down her bare arms as goosebumps from the cooler air erupted on her skin, but she gave his hand a reassuring squeeze anyway. His hand was warm and calloused and slightly wrinkled from the water. Yuna would have expected nothing else from him.
“I don’t think our story ends like this.” Yuna knew she sounded like Tidus, but she didn’t want to dwell on that thought. It made her too sad. "I think we’ll find out why we’re here someday. Until then...it will be hard. But there will be more days like this one too.”
It was hard to look away from the glow surrounding his wild, wet hair, but after a moment, Yuna realized the significance of the orange haze surrounding them. “Oh.” Her breath caught a little as she glanced behind him towards the western horizon. “It’s sunset…”
Caius seemed to agree with her assessment that they needed to go inside as soon as he laid eyes on the shattered window and the tiny smears of blood on the windowsill. Yuna nodded determinedly when he said that they’d have to break in. She didn’t think that she’d ever forced her way inside a house before, so she glanced around for possibilities. They could always break out the rest of the glass from the window and climb inside, but there would be a high chance of them accidentally cutting themselves on the way in. Maybe they could try to force the front door instead? Caius was strong enough that he might be able to, but before Yuna could make the suggestion, he offered her a hand.
Yuna blinked slightly in confusion, but she trusted him completely at this point, so she grasped his calloused hand before she’d even really thought about, it just assuming he had a plan. The next moment, the world shifted into a blue tint as her surroundings blurred and changed completely into a cozy looking study. Releasing her friend’s hand, Yuna stumbled forward and quickly clapped a hand over her mouth to stifle her surprised gasp as she looked back at Caius and realized what must have happened. He had warped both of them inside using his kingsglaive powers. Well that certainly made things easier.
There were more important things at stake right now, but Yuna still couldn’t resist a whispered comment. “I didn’t know you could warp with someone else. I’ll have to thank King Noctis if I ever meet him.” She smiled faintly before going about the more dire task of taking in their surroundings. They looked to be in someone’s study or office, with a long varnished desk in one corner and some bookshelves in the other. The wooden floorboards creaked under her feet, and the fireplace was sending up thin wisps of smoke as if a roaring fire had been left to steadily burnt itself down to ashes. Besides the shattered window, nothing seemed terribly out of place except for a few scattered droplets of blood across the floor. There wasn’t even any broken glass in sight, which confirmed that the window must have shattered outwards. Someone or something inside had crashed through.
“I’m not sure I like how this looks,” Yuna murmured uneasily as she stepped past the bookshelves. A quick glance told her that all the books seemed to be about various beasts living in the region. The owners of the house seemed to have an interest in monsters. “If something happened, it looks like it’s been hours…” If not days, which meant that they were likely too late to help anyone who had been here. Still, that wouldn’t stop her from making sure, and she was confident that Caius felt the same way.
A stack of invoices had been left out on the desk as if someone had been going over their finances, and Yuna was a bit unnerved to see that the top one related to the purchase of a large supply of behemoth meat, but she forced herself to turn her attention to the door instead as she crept out into the hallway.
“Is anyone there?” She called out, turning in a slow circle while hoping for a response. “We’re sorry to have barged in! Is anyone hurt?” The only answer was the distant buzzing of flies, and Yuna gave Caius an anxious look before peering into the dining room, which seemed to be the source of the sound.
“Oh.” Yuna was forced to cover her nose at the terrible smell permeating the room. Spoiled food lay on plates that the flies were enjoying even if no one else was. All the chairs were pushed back from the long table, as if the guests had left in a hurry. A wine glass had even been tipped over without being picked up again--the red stain across the tablecloth doing nothing to make Yuna feel better about the situation.
“What do you think?” Yuna murmured to Caius, backing out of the room and into the hallway again so she could breathe. The entryway led further back into the rest of the house, but Yuna didn’t have much hope that it would be much different than what they’d found so far. More promising were the stairs that led upward--surely there would be more places to hide upstairs--and the cracked open door that revealed some dark winding stairs down into the basement. Yuna clutched her staff a little tighter and stepped a bit closer to Caius as she noticed the thick scratches near the bottom of the basement door. “Up or down?”
Seymour didn’t seem to know how to answer her questions about what was going on here, but Yuna hadn’t really expected him to honestly. If she had been here for at least a year and still had no idea how people could be dragged here from separate times, then it would be unfair to expect Seymour to have those answers when he’d only just arrived.
Yuna regretted asking him such a bold question about Lord Jyscal when Seymour looked a little stunned and as if he needed a moment to pull his thoughts back together. She was reminded more than ever that this wasn’t the calm and collected Maester that she had met in Luca. This was a boy around her age who seemed as if he were a little unused to talking to people. What could have happened to him in a decade that he had changed so much? This version of Seymour might not have the answer, but Yuna suspected that it must tie in to Lord Jyscal if Seymour’s evolution had culminated in his murder. Maybe that’s why she was so desperate to hear the truth.
“Yes. I knew,” she murmured briefly when the blue-haired boy across from her asked if she’d known his mother was human. Seymour’s attendant Tromell had told them, but she’d always suspected before then. He just didn’t have the appearance of a full Guado. He was taller than most humans and had slender fingers with sharpened nails, but they weren’t quite the clawed fingers of a Guado. Similarly, his hair was styled a bit unnaturally for a human, but it looked like it had more give than the stiff hair of a full Guado.
“What?” Yuna was shocked to hear that his own father had banished him to Baaj Island when he was a child, just for being part human. “That’s terrible…” Baaj was said to be almost entirely in ruins, and to confine your own son there just for coming from two worlds was impossibly cruel. Yuna’s hands clenched a little tighter around her staff, deciding that she was probably taking it so personally because she herself was only half human. What would her life have been if her father had been as ashamed of her as Lord Jyscal was of Seymour? It hurt to even consider it.
Seymour asked if she had always wanted to be a summoner, and the reason why became clear as he explained to her when he had first become one. Truthfully Yuna had always wondered why he had chosen to give up his pilgrimage. She didn’t blame him for it--many abandoned the journey before the end--but he had been such a powerful summoner that it had always seemed odd to her. Now her eyes widened as he finished up his story. It almost didn’t seem possible that the revered Maester of the Guado could have done those things, but Yuna believed him anyway. Even when their stories were ludicrous, Yuna gave people the benefit of the doubt. Maybe that was a fault of hers, but she had no intention of stopping now.
“I didn’t always want to be a summoner, but I did after I saw how happy my father’s calm made everyone.” Yuna looked up to meet his almost purple eyes before continuing. “But it should always be a choice. Ten is...too young to make that decision even if you’d wanted to. I’m so sorry.” Yuna steeled herself to be blasphemous before looking at him determinedly. “Maester or not, your father was a coward.”
Yuna thought that her own confusion could wait in the wake of how distressed the boy was, but parts of his story had struck her like a blitzball. “Her final aeon has been with me ever since. I was supposed to use her to destroy Sin.” That couldn’t really be how the final summoning worked...could it? Yuna had always known that she would die facing Sin, but someone else alongside her…
Biting her lip, Yuna shook her head, deciding that her questions could wait until they were back on the trail. It wasn’t as important as Seymour’s feelings right now.
“If it helps...I do think you bring about change eventually. The Guado seemed to adore you when we visited your manor.” A sudden thought struck her, and she smiled weakly up at Seymour, even if she still wasn’t quite sure how to feel about him. “You were always helping me and my guardians. More than the other summoners. I assumed you picked me because of my father, but...my mother was an Al Bhed, you see.”
Of course, Yuna wasn't entirely sure that his attention had been a good thing between his marriage proposal and the murder of Jyscal, but she kept trying to remind herself that this version hadn't done anything wrong yet.
Yuna nodded her assent when Caius said that it would be best if she were the one to navigate the way to the beach. “Sure, I’ll give you directions as we go. I have no idea how to steer Vordun, so I’ll leave that part to you.” Caius was able to strap himself into the saddle a lot faster than Yuna had, but that wasn’t too surprising given how often he probably did this. Yuna herself had only ridden Vordun once before this, so she wasn’t able to suppress a slight squeak as the dragon pushed off from the ground. Grabbing onto Caius’ waist to steady herself, Yuna watched the ground rush away from them as Vordun propelled them forward with his powerful wings. Her friend’s house was the only dot of brown in a splash of green below them--Caius hadn’t been kidding when he said that Vordun had plenty of space to hunt.
“I still can’t believe you built that house yourself,” Yuna said appreciatively, responding to a comment he’d made while she’d been looking the whole thing over. “Did you learn how to do that back home? I wouldn’t know where to start with anything bigger than a tent.” Not that there was anything wrong with living in a tent. It got so hot on Besaid that most buildings besides the temple weren’t any bigger than that anyway, but they weren’t very sturdy structures. Caius’ house would last him a good while.
Remembering that she was supposed to be navigating, Yuna got them steered in the right direction before striking up a conversation with her friend. “You’ll have to tell me what you’ve been up to! I guess I haven’t seen you since that restaurant in Provo…” Yuna supposed that she did have at least one piece of news for Caius herself, so she raised the topic after a moment or two. “I met someone I knew from Spira. His name’s Seymour, if you ever run into him. It’s funny though. He was one of the five most important priests in the world back home, but he’s...different here. Younger. He didn’t remember me.” Even after hearing Caius talk about Ardyn and Somnus, she really hadn’t thought that weird time shenanigans could apply to people from Spira as well, but it seemed like no one was safe from that.
Yuna left her comments about Seymour to that. She and Caius were good enough friends that she didn’t mind digging into the things the maester had done or that Yuna had once been engaged to him, but she thought that conversation was best reserved for when she and Caius both had a cup of wine in front of them.
Actually...she should probably bring up that she had gone on two dates with Faris, but maybe that should wait as well. Judging from how Faris had spoken of Caius, she suspected that their dislike was mutual. Yuna only hoped that she’d be able to force them to get along the next time that they all ran into each other.
Eventually, Yuna glanced at the slip of paper in her hand before directing Caius to land Vordun in a patch of sand right on the coast. The water was beautiful from so high up, even with the towering waves and slightly overcast weather. By the time that Yuna had unbuckled herself and slid off Vordun, she was staring a little longingly at the endless expanse of ocean before them.
“This is actually my first time coming out this far. I didn’t know it would look so much like home.” If only they didn’t have a job to do. Yuna had the urge to take off her boots and walk barefoot across the clean white sand, but there were more important things to do right now than sightsee. Sighing, Yuna led them up the beach towards the closest house that stood overlooking it. She trusted that Caius knew best whether to leave Vordun or bring him along. The dragon was big enough that he definitely made people nervous at this point, but on the other hand, he was incredibly friendly and good to have around when they didn’t even know what they were dealing with yet.
It turned out that they had overshot the house a bit, and Yuna sheepishly apologized as they finally ended up at the right one after walking down the coast a bit. After comparing the slip of paper in her hand to the numbers on the door, Yuna nodded as she took in the bright blue beach house. “It’s pretty big for a vacation house…” Some people in Torensten were incredibly wealthy, and Yuna wasn’t really surprised that their client was one of them. The house was the color of Vordun’s scales, and Yuna found it a little odd that she could see the lamps burning inside even through the drawn curtains. It was the middle of the day, so she couldn’t see what they needed so much light for, but she supposed that it wasn’t really her business as she glanced up at Caius before reaching out to knock on the red front door.
There was no answer.
Yuna knocked again a little uncertainly before raising her voice to call out a greeting. “Ah...excuse me? Lady Xaria? Your husband sent us to check on you…”
Nothing. Yuna glanced a bit dubiously at the lights on inside before stepping back to see if they were missing anything. The left side of the house was nothing but the beginnings of a garden struggling to grow in the thin, rocky soil. To the right, she thought there was nothing but sand at first glance, but the sun had come out since they’d first landed on the beach, and the light was glinting off of something laying on top of it.
Yuna looked at Caius to see if he’d noticed anything before she trailed over to the side of the house to check on what she’d seen. Blinking in the sun, Yuna was a little startled to see that it had been shards of glass sparkling in the light, and after looking up at the window beside her, she quickly raised her staff and gripped it tightly in her hands. The window had been broken from the inside out, and there was no mistaking the tiny dark droplets on the windowsill for anything but blood.
Backing away, Yuna looked around for her friend, keeping her voice low when she found Caius again. “Do you think we should go inside?”
Seymour looked as shocked by the replay of the sphere as Yuna felt, and even with as panicked as she was, something about that reaction struck her as wrong. Maybe it was because her Seymour back on Spira took everything in such stride that it really cemented how different he was from the teenage version across from her. She somehow couldn’t imagine Maester Seymour responding to her accusation with anything other than a calm refusal or cold acceptance, but that wasn’t how he reacted at all. Any progress that Yuna had made with him in the clearing looked like it had been lost as he took a step back from her, holding onto his staff for dear life as if he expected her to attack at any moment.
Despite everything that she knew to be true, Yuna still felt her stomach clench with pity for the scared boy looking back at her. This wasn’t a jaded Maester, met with respect at every turn. This was someone her age who had been hurt enough to jump at shadows and fear retribution from someone nearly a foot shorter than him. He was legitimately upset by what he’d heard, and that more than anything made her bite her lip and lower her staff a bit warily.
“I believe you. Or at least...I believe that you haven’t yet.” That was the heart of the problem, wasn’t it? How did you punish someone for crimes that they hadn’t committed yet? “But I don’t understand.” That was an understatement. The situation was so overwhelming that Yuna felt tears burning her eyes, though she did her best to not let them fall. “How can we be from different times? And why can’t I remember what happened between us?”
She didn’t expect Seymour to have an answer to those questions. Not when he was so new to Zephon, so maybe it was unfair to have asked. Shaking her head, Yuna looked up at the blue-haired man again, a different question rising to her lips that never had the first time that she’d heard the sphere back in the Thunderplains. Maybe because she’d only ever heard wonderful things about Lord Jyscal until now. “...What did your father do to you that was so bad?” Seymour’s words and actions just didn’t mesh well with the image that the previous Guado leader had presented to the world, and it bothered her. “You said you lived on Baaj, but it’s just a ruin, isn’t it? Why wouldn’t you have been in Guadosalam?”
Something told Yuna that the answer would be hard to hear, but she needed to hear it. There was a piece of the story that she hadn’t had before back on Spira. She was sure of it.
Yuna wiped some of the salt water from her stinging eyes as she looked around for Faris. She was too used to the clear, tropical waters of Besaid. You could see almost anything through that sparkling ocean, but these waters were cloudy and mysterious. Yuna wondered if that had anything to do with the machina used on Zephon, but either way, she was grateful that Spira wasn’t like this. She didn’t want to think about how many more would have died if Sin had been able to hide in its depths and launch surprise attacks.
“Faris?” Nothing answered her except the wind and the sway of the waves, and a touch of worry struck her. Not that he’d drowned of course---it hadn’t been nearly enough time for that, and Faris was a strong swimmer, but maybe something had attacked him down where she couldn’t see. Yuna was just getting ready to return to the boat to see what she could do when her skirt suddenly rippled around her legs. A split second later, there was a splash as something rose from the water behind her and placed firm hands over her shoulders. Yuna barely had time to squeak in surprise before a heavy weight forced her back down under the water.
Yuna was released as quickly as she had been grabbed, and she was able to guess what had happened even before she emerged spluttering to see Faris’ grinning face. “And to think I was worried about you! You’re lucky I didn’t bring my staff,” she complained, but there was no real heat behind her words. It was hard not to smile when Faris laughed like that, so she giggled and lightly splashed him instead before deciding that revenge was the best course of action.
Holding her breath, she ducked back under the water, her heavy skirt assisting her in sinking down quickly until she was able to see Faris’ legs, bare under his tunic as he slowly treaded water in place. Kicking up, she grabbed his ankle and lightly tugged him down before rising back up and shaking out her wet brown hair as she broke the surface.
Heat colored her cheeks slightly when Yuna saw that she hadn’t pushed back from him very far. She could feel her skirt billowing against him below the surface, and Yuna took a moment to look at the drenched boy in front of her, deciding that he looked nice like this. His purple hair spread around him like a veil, and there was something natural about the way the sun glinted off his deep green eyes. It felt like he belonged out here.
“Hi,” Yuna finally managed despite her own thoughts, smiling up at him a little bashfully. “Should we call it even now?”
