Chapter Text
Yuna fell into dreams, even when she was awake. Few knew that behind those sympathetic eyes and gentle smile was a constant view of the past, of the space between words never spoken, of a love even her close friends pretended didn’t exist.
Few knew because she was very good at listening. She knew people liked her best when she spoke softly and rarely, when she spoke of universal ideas like hope, love, and unity.
But even those subjects got her in trouble nowadays.
Lady Yuna didn’t belong to anyone, not even herself. Yuna went by many titles. High Summoner. Spira’s Beacon of Light. Braska’s Daughter. Conqueror of Sin.
It wouldn’t be fair to make Rikku meet diplomats and disciples. It would be cruel to force Lulu to handle the public. Wakka would say too much without thinking and Kimahri would never have the patience.
So, if someone had to be the face of the New Age, it should be her. Of course it had to be her. She’d never complained in her life. She had been taught the purifying nature of suffering and loneliness, so none of that was new. She was an expert at keeping the past and pain inside, locked behind a polite smile.
Since the Eternal Calm, Yuna had received so many requests that it was decided she would have open hours. The Aurochs constructed her an office adjacent to the Temple, where she met with people from the hours of 10 AM to 2 PM. She sat in a high-backed chair in a breezy, open room notably absent of Yevon iconography-- unless you counted the portrait of Lord Braska hanging on the stone wall behind her.
Here, with a small coffee table at her knees, she sat opposite the visitors’ plush couch. There was always a pot of hot tea available, as well as several boxes of tissues in the storage cabinet behind her.
Yuna had always come off as a good listener. She was exceptionally good at hiding when her mind wandered away from the conversation... as it was at the moment, and to what it always wandered to... to who it always wandered to.
“Hey, listen up, Goers!” Tidus said as he jumped on a crate. They had been in Luca, and everyone else but him was still on the gangplank of the ship. “I-- give me that--” He leaned over and snatched a megaphone from a porter’s hand. “Attention Goers!” he said loudly. “Yeah, Luca Goers, Luca, all of you, and that man announcing all the shit talk. I see you up there!”
Tidus pointed up at a man with a microphone on the second story of a nearby building.
“The Aurochs may have sucked ass every other year, but that’s old news!” Tidus shouted. “I’m on the team this year! I’m a one man revolution, and guess what, you all are going to slob my hog!”
“Boo!” the crowd shouted.
Tidus ducked to avoid a flying glass bottle.
“And my endurance is through the roof!” he shouted back into the megaphone. “I can do this all day. You wanna go? You wanna fucking roll?”
Lulu buried her face in her hands.
Tasgio coughed without covering his mouth, sending small droplets of spit splatting on the coffee table. Yuna snapped back to attention and gestured her hand to the tissue box. He ignored the gesture and kept talking anyway.
“And she’s been telling us to call her Nizarut, and you know I want to love her, but this whole... nonsense goes against’s Yevon’s natural order!” Tasgio said. “Yevon made her this way for a reason. Her body, her life, is a gift. She must honor it!”
Yuna nodded politely. “That sounds difficult for all of you.”
Tasgio shook his head. “She’s run off and joined those Youth Leaguers, and they’ve filled her mind with terrible ideas. The wife and I didn’t want to turn her away... but she’s a heretic. We don’t want her to starve, but it's the only way she’ll see. It’s our house, so she has to obey our rules.”
Yuna nodded. “What was the last thing you said to your grandchild?”
“I said, uh,” Tasgio started. He lifted his cap and scratched his white hair. “What I told you. That she can’t come back until she.... acts right.”
“And if your grandchild never returns...” Yuna said. “You’ll accept the consequences of your words? Are you willing to stand by your actions?”
Tasgio shook her head. “I... High Summoner, I accepted her for fifteen years. I loved her as she was. We went to the temple together. My wife taught her how to read. I took her on her first Chocobo ride. I loved her as much as I loved my own daughter, Yevon help her soul. She was so much like her mother. Such a sweet little girl. Just like you...”
Yuna’s fingernails clenched into the armrest.
A bell rang behind her. Yuna nearly jumped out of her chair.
A young Priestess popped her head from behind a column.
“You have two minutes remaining, sir.”
“High Summoner,” Tasgio said. He rose so quickly that his shins tapped the coffee table, sending tea spilling over the cups and into the napkins. “How can I get my granddaughter back? How can I make us a family again?”
Yuna stood up quickly and ran her hands over her large chairback, making sure to keep it between her and the elderly man.
“Look in your heart, I think,” Yuna said. “Remember what you have in common, and the bonds of love that are--”
“But she’s joined a group of terrorists! I’m supposed to have compassion for that? I--” Tasgio darted closer. Yuna stepped back. His jaw dropped, betrayed. He was disappointed.
She wasn’t giving him the right answer. He saved up money to come all the way to her island and she was a disappointment. Yuna knew that look well. When she only had fifteen minutes for each visitor, she received this look a lot.
“You’re not one of them, are you?” Tasgio said. “I don’t think you’ve ever given your opinion on the Youth League.”
“I’m afraid I don’t know much about them,” Yuna said quickly. Her voice tightened up, even though this was the same answer she had given a dozen times. “I’ll have to do more research. Thank you for coming, Mr. Tasgio. May peace be with you.”
“May the peace of Yevon be with you,” he said. He brought his hands in front of his stomach as if holding an invisible box. He bowed, making the prayer of Yevon.
She returned the gesture with a tight-lipped smile and a polite nod.
“Oh yeah,” Tidus had said when they were alone, after everyone else had gone to bed. “That prayer thing you guys all do? You’re doing it way too slow. You see, you’re supposed to hold your hands like you’re holding a blitzball. And the part two is like this--”
Tidus broke from the prayer motion to violently throw his arm up and over.
“It’s symbolic of dunking your enemy in the garbage. I wonder why Yevon didn’t keep that part?”
Now, Yuna thought of that every time she saw some solemn Priest or Priestess make the motion of the holy prayer. It was hard to keep from imagining him... and she didn’t want to stop. All the silly memories kept him alive.
And keeping him alive was the only thing that got her up in the morning.
Tasgio silently drifted closer to her. His pale eyes narrowed as a long breath escaped his nostrils.
She read him without a word.
What do you believe, Yuna? What are you without Yevon? Why not go out and say that you’ve left the faith, then you can see if we all still want you?
His expression may have hinted at disappointment and emerging disdain, but he said nothing. The Priestess took him by the arm and led him out the archway and into the sun. He nodded once at Yuna, his mouth agape as if he wanted to say something-- but he was too hurt to find the words.
Yuna closed her eyes and shook her head. She knew she shouldn’t dwell on it. She didn’t have time. There were more appointments, more people, and more souls she would inevitably dissapoint.
The High Summoner belonged to everyone. The High Summoner was never who they wanted her to be. No High Summoner was meant to live after the Final Summon.
“Forget all that! You know, live a normal life!” Tidus said. “Come on now, Yuna, what do you say?”
He waded in the water, staring at her with that same golden retriever smile.
She couldn’t say no to him... not immediately.
Then again, he hadn’t been so direct either.
“High Summoner, your next guest has arrived,” the Priestess announced. Yuna snapped back to the moment just as her attendant finished pouring another two cups of tea. She hadn’t even heard them come in.
Yuna straightened her obi and flicked her hair out of her face. How many guests had it been today? How many hours did she have left?
She didn’t know. Even the clocks were kept from her.
“This is Miss Kiyuri of Luca,” the Priestess announced with a curt nod. She gestured forward and Kiyuri barrelled in.
Yuna barely had a look at her, but gathered she was in her twenties. Her face was red from waiting in the sun.
“Lady Yuna, I can’t believe it,” she said with an eager smile. “So glad we could meet. You’re an inspiration. I love your work. I-- can I?-- I have to--”
Without another word, she grabbed Yuna in a bear hug, nearly throwing her over. The soles of Yuna’s boots squeaked against the polished floor.
Yuna’s two attendants stared with wide eyes. She dismissed them with a polite wave of her hand. They disappeared behind the pillars and walls, as silent as ghosts.
“Thank you,” Yuna said.
“We owe everything to you, you know that?” Kiyuri said. “And your charity work, it’s beautiful, wonderful. I’ve always been saying the Al Bhed are a great, proud people, and I’m so happy you could bring awareness to that.”
She was talking about the Eternal Calm Foundation, which Yuna had formed once she realized Spirans were sending their tithe to her instead of Yevon. The Foundation was new and its goals were nebulous, but its work focused on bringing literacy to underrepresented communities and housing children who had been orphaned by Sin.
What monster couldn’t support that?
“You’re far too kind,” Yuna mumbled. She gestured to the couch. “Please, have a seat. Tell me more about yourself.”
“Me?” Kiyuri said with a goofy laugh. “I’m nothing. Who cares about me? I didn’t come all this way to talk about myself!”
Yuna shook her head. “No one is nothing. Please. Have a seat.”
Kiyuri kept a wide smile as she set her purse next to her on the couch.
Yuna had been doing this for months, and, while she hated the attention, she recognized that her discomfort would only make matters worse for her guest. Her job was simple: she was to swallow her feelings and pretend she was interested in their conversation, especially when she wasn’t. She leaned forward, nodded, and let people speak, even when their story was riddled with pauses and repetitions. Her job was to make people feel better. She was good at it.
Most people wanted to hear that things were going to be all right. Most people wanted to hear that they mattered, they were important (in their own way), and that they were worthwhile. Yuna found that easy. She truly believed that everyone was special in their unique way and that they deserved love-- she simply wished people would believe it on their own.
“I was a Blitzer, retired now... for now,” Kiyuri said. “I even played against the Aurochs. I faced off against Keepa-- I just saw him walking around outside..” She sighed through her teeth. “I hope he has a side gig now. The guy couldn’t catch shit.”
Yuna’s heart sped up. As soon as she sat down, she almost jumped up again.
“Did you know Tidus? He played Forward.”
Kiyuri cocked her head. “Red hair?”
“Blond.”
She shook her head. “Sorry. Never heard of him.”
Yuna felt her breath leave her. No one remembered Tidus. He saved the world, he killed his own father, he sacrificed the miraculous life he had, and everyone acted like he never happened.
“But Blitz is the past,” Kiyuri said. “It felt so insignificant after the whole... Sin returning and the Calm and everyone finding a new purpose after Yevon collapsed.” Yuna nodded as Kiyuri took a breath. “So I started thinking, and drinking, and screaming. Suddenly, not having Sin, and no Sendings, and seeing people around me die just to become fiends... it felt so pointless. Is there really nothing after this? Is this life all we get?”
Yuna didn’t nod this time. She tried to look empathetic. No matter how much her guests pushed her, she was never going to promise them an afterlife, a god, or even an overarching sense of order. How could she? And how could they even believe her if she did?
Kiyuri nodded. “The Eternal Calm was the end of Eternal Life. We were made to suffer, to be rewarded in the Farplane, and you cut us off from it.” She stared at Yuna, unblinking. Then she laughed, threw up her arms, and clapped her palms against her thighs. “And it’s really great that you did!”
Yuna tried to laugh along.
“Because it’s the only way we’d come to appreciate the gift that is living, right, High Summoner Yuna? A thousand years of death and dread made us fear life itself! We feared our own potential and Yevon profited off it!” She spoke more quickly with each word, and hadn’t taken a breath yet. “Everything new is scary. Change is scary, but we need to make new pathways, like a stream that gets blocked off by a dam!”
The manic energy rose in the air between them. But Yuna knew that she was the High Summoner, the beacon of empathy and light and unwillingly a symbol of acceptance and hope. So, she ignored the growing tension in her jaw and told her eyes to stay focused on Kiyuri instead of scanning for the exits.
She didn’t need to respond. Kiyuri continued on her own. The knot on her bandana was practically bouncing with excitement now.
“So I was praying on it, but praying didn’t feel the same, so I asked... I don’t know who, for help, to help me see the way. My choices were simple: find a new way to live or die, rotting, without purpose.”
“No one is without purpose,” Yuna said. “Have you told anyone about this--”
“I told the universe, I told the spirits, I told the fiends and the Pyreflies that wafted through the fields at night. I walked all along Spira, on my own Pilgrimage, just like you, Yuna, but in reverse. Have you traveled lately?”
Yuna sighed. “No, I prefer to stay at home.”
Or, better yet, home preferred to have her.
Kiyuri laughed. “I knew it! I knew it! That’s why I was sent here!” she said with wide eyes. “Because I’ve been through Zanarkand, and Djose, and Luca and everything has changed. Fiends have overrun towns. People get mowed down by machina. Lady Yuna, Spira has spiralled and it’s because they’ve lost track of what’s important. They’ve lost track of the light and the dark and the here and the Farplane. How are people supposed to make their lives meaningful and loving if they can’t move on after they die? And then I got the answer. It was so obvious. It was inevitable. And it led me here to you.”
Yuna expected the sales pitch to come next. Maybe Kiyuri would try to preach the reformed tenets of a new Yevon. Maybe she would ask her to marry her. Maybe she would try to get Yuna to fund her company selling essential oils and crystals.
None would have been the first time.
“You’re humble, Yuna. That’s what people love,” Kiyuri said. She reached into her bag and pulled out a small rectangular box. Its surfaces were made of hardwood. Its panels were inlaid with colorful mother-of-pearl that caught the strip of sunlight peeking through the window. “That’s why I love you.”
Love. People just threw that word around. Before Sin, only Yuna’s father had told her he loved her, right before he marched off and got himself killed. That was the norm in Spira-- everyone knew their family or close friends loved them, but there was no need to be so garish as to say it out loud. Love was shown through actions, through suffering, and through sacrifice. It was more polite to keep it to oneself, so as not to make anyone uncomfortable.
Now, strangers said that nearly every time they greeted her.
Tidus couldn’t even say it and Yuna didn’t blame him. Love was a powerful and frightening thing to foist on someone. Love was a curse.
“That’s very sweet,” Yuna said quietly.
“But being humble means that you need to be pushed into things, right? I’ve met a lot of girls like that-- so powerful, so interesting, so fun-- but they thought they had to stay in the background.” Her eyes grew wilder as she spoke with extra enunciation and speed, leaning closer with her hyper-focused gaze. “So, I’m here to help you, however I can, and I know I can, because Lord Braska came to me, and he told me what to do.”
“Braska?” Yuna’s stomach turned. She moved a little to stand up. Kiyuri stood up too.
Kiyuri slid off the top of the box. “We can fix the Farplane. You’re Spira’s guiding light, so wherever you go, the spirits will follow.” Kiyuri revealed a dagger. Its blade glinted in the light. “You just have to go first.”
Yuna couldn’t move fast enough. She screamed at herself that this was real, this was happening, but her boots lagged a second behind.
“It’s fine! You won’t really die!” Kiyuri spat. “You can’t!”
She thrust the knife forward. Yuna ducked and stumbled around the chair leg-- fast, but not fast enough. As Kiyuri jostled her knife from the wooden chairback, she jumped forward and stomped Yuna’s right sleeve.
Yuna tripped into the stone coffee table with a yelp. She searched the walls-- no assistants, no Guardians, and she didn’t even have a stick she could use to whack Kiyuri away.
She did, however, lock eyes with the solemn portrait of her father.
“You must embrace your destiny!” Kiyuri shouted. Her shadow draped over the back of Yuna’s head.
Yuna slipped her hand out of her sleeve and rolled to the side, nearly getting caught up in her long skirt. She stumbled back up and held out one hand as she stood up. She tried to ignore how utterly pale her forearm was.
“Put it away. Put the knife down,” Yuna said. She tried to sound commanding, but she wasn’t accustomed to raising her voice.
Even now, part of her was afraid of making a scene.
“It’s too late,” Kiyuri said. Her eyes glittered with tears. Her mouth was locked in a grimace. “It has to be you. You know it has to be you. Don’t play with me like this. Don’t lie to me.”
“Stop,” Yuna said. “Don’t move.”
Once upon a time, her words had power. She could stop a fiend in its tracks and paralyze it with fear. Two years ago, she would have been able to light Kiyuri on fire or damn her with Holy magic. For a moment, she’d been the most powerful Summoner in Spira and possibly the greatest living Mage.
But a lot had changed since then. The magic in her had died with her Aeons.
Kiyuri stepped closer, still holding her dagger out and ready to slash.
Yuna saw the ocean in her periphery. She was only a minute away from the edge of the cliff. She considered running away and diving in the water. She had been practicing, and she knew she could stay under for at least a minute.
Then again, Kiyuri was a professional Blitzer.
There wasn’t an elegant way out of this. There were no Aeons or Guardians to do the work for her. Yuna eyed the ceramic teapot, and wondered if she had the speed or mettle to slam it on Kiyuri’s head.
“Kiyuri, I hear you,” Yuna said gently. “And you’re right.” She nodded. “I can open the Farplane. I can show you. I think it’s what... Lord Braska meant. You had to come here in person for me to understand. I understand now. I’ll show you if you put the knife down.”
Kiyuri blinked a few tears out of her eyes. “Really?”
“You did great,” Yuna said. “Thank you.”
Kiyuri slowly relaxed her grip on the dagger’s handle. Yuna took in a long breath and held it. The seconds stretched as Yuna studied her assailant.
Only then did she hear the gentle patter of droplets falling from her back. Only then did she see the blood splattered on Kiyuri’s knuckles.
Yuna hadn’t even felt the knife stab her.
“All right,” Yuna said softly. She lifted her arms and touched her fingertips together as if warming up for a magic trick. She turned to her right and saw an armored silhouette of a man under the palm tree outside. She snapped back to stay focused on Kiyuri. “Are you ready?” she asked.
Kiyuri nodded.
Her blade pointed down to the floor now. Yuna wondered if she could throw that dagger as well as she could throw a blitzball.
“I’m going to need you to take a deep breath with me,” Yuna said in the softest voice she could manage. “And focus on someone in the Farplane, someone who meant something to you. You can close your eyes if that helps.” Something tensed in Kiyuri’s face. “But you don’t have to,” Yuna said quickly. “It’s all about being comfortable.”
A few shadows moved outside. Were they palm trees swaying in the wind or her security team lining up for a shot?
The tension of the moment silenced the constant doubts in Yuna’s head, keeping her in the present. It had been a while since a fiend tried to throw a claw at her or a soldier pointed a gun at her throat.
And having it happen again, after months, wasn’t frightening at all. In fact... it felt right.
She didn’t have a weapon, but she still had power, a new power where people were inclined to listen to her and believe what she said.
“Are you thinking of someone, Kiyuri?” Yuna asked. “I sense something’s holding you back. Did you part on bad terms?”
Kiyuri nodded with tears in her eyes.
“That’s all right now,” Yuna said. “But I need you to focus. You have to be my conduit.”
Yuna couldn’t believe how easily the lies came out, how easy it was to pretend that she was wise, a medium, or had any grasp on what was going on.
At last, Kiyuri closed her eyes. She squeezed out a few tears and sobbed quietly. The sight stirred Yuna’s heart for a second, but not enough to sway her. Yuna understood devastating pain. She’d heard the final whispers from the souls she had Sent. She grieved with travelers who sobbed at her knees. She lost her father while the world cheered for his death.
Nothing drove her to tears anymore. No emotion was powerful enough to sway her from her purpose.
“That’s good,” Yuna said. She slowly backed up to the open door, moving so quietly and carefully that her soles didn’t even shuffle on the rug.
A rivulet of blood ran down her leg. It soaked into her socks.
“You’re doing great,” Yuna said. She stepped back once more and caught a pair of red eyes peeking from the front archway. The figure didn’t move, as the sound of her many, many belts would give away her position.
Silently, Yuna tried to negotiate with Lulu. Lulu shook her head and moved her hand over her eyes.
You don’t want to see this, she seemed to say.
Yuna swallowed. There wasn’t a peaceful end to this. She tried to handle it on her own, but now she had no choice.
Kiyuri opened one eye and saw that Yuna was halfway out the door. With a wail, she lunged forward while swinging the knife back.
Yuna jumped out the back door and over the steps. She rolled over the grass, closed her eyes, and brought her fingers to her mouth.
Her whistle pierced the air, a warning for everyone nearby.
The little annex exploded into stone, wood, and light. Its metal roof blew upwards and landed somewhere off the side of the cliff. Yuna heard it splash several seconds later.
Once the shaking had stopped, she lifted her face from the grass. Small pieces of paper and ash wafted in the air high above her, lazily making their way down like snowflakes.
***
“Praise be to Yevon!” said a voice she didn’t recognize.
“Is she going to wake up soon? I actually came all this way to ask her something.” That was another voice she had never heard before.
“No,” a woman said. She was probably one of the Priestesses. “Perhaps it would be best to leave.”
“But I helped bring her in! I love the High Summoner! I would never do something like this.”
“Clean yourself up,” Lulu said. “No more visits.”
Yuna dreamed of Luca. She dreamed of giving speeches, but, instead of speaking to a crowd, she spoke to individual people who stood in line to see her. They stood so close that she could see their lashes and feel their breaths.
Everyone had lost something precious. Everyone wanted her to tell them life would be all right. Everyone wanted her time.
A long whistle pierced the air.
Yuna shot up. She ran her nails on the edge of the straw mattress and the woven blanket over her legs. The edges of the tent gradually came into focus. A dim glass lamp burned in the corner.
“At least she’s not screaming, eh?” Wakka said. “This may be the first good nap she’s had in a while.”
Now she was wide awake, hands and face hot. They were talking about her. She didn’t ‘dream’ anymore. The word itself had warped and wrapped itself around the image of Tidus. She didn’t see him when she slept, but she saw him everywhere else.
She once dreamed of bringing him back to Besaid.
She didn’t have dreams, but she did have nightmares. It was a blessing that she couldn’t cast magic anymore, because what she saw was so horrifying. Yuna remembered the first time she was shaken awake, only to find an elderly Priestess with a broken nose and her blood dripping on the sheets.
“She needs time,” Lulu said. “I... was the same way after Chappu--”
“I know. I know. I miss him too,” Wakka said. “A lot, actually.”
The flaps of the tent wafted with the wind, revealing darkness and hints of firelight from the main bonfire. She hid behind the thick fabric and leaned in once she heard familiar voices.
“How could this happen, though? Why would anyone want to attack Yuna, I don’t get it.” Wakka said. Yuna could practically see him scratching the back of his head.
“Asking it again and again won’t change the truth,” Lulu said. “Fame attracts the wrong people. And even those who aren’t violent feel entitled to her time.”
Yuna ducked low and peeked out into the darkness. Lulu and Wakka stood alone as silhouettes. They faced the fire and cradled mugs in their hands.
“What are we supposed to do then, huh?” Wakka said.
“When we agreed to be Guardians, that was until her death,” Lulu said. “I trust you still mean it.”
Wakka scoffed. “Of course I do! I’d do anything for her. You know that! But, uh--” Wakka looked into the base of the fire and kicked the dirt with his sandals. “This is... what she really wants?”
“She wants whatever makes Spira happy,” Lulu said quietly. She sounded defeated. Worried.
“Maybe we should get her a dog,” Wakka whispered.
Yuna watched as Wakka moved closer to Lulu. His shadow loomed over Yuna’s tent as he took Lulu under his arm.
Yuna turned away as her face flushed.
She knew Besaid like an old friend. She knew every hidden pathway, every trail, and every “secret” watering hole. She knew every Priestess and saw as they grew from strict disciplinarians to kind women who doted on her after she returned from Zanarkand. She knew the merchants who came in every year, the infants who had grown into children, every member of the Aurochs, and each of their silly hobbies that had nothing to do with Blitzball. She knew the stars above and the way the morning mist would roll in thick overnight only to burn off with the rising sun.
She thought she had known Wakka and Lulu, who were practically family and, from the looks of it, were even more interested in each other than she had guessed. The Eternal Calm was meant to bring peace. They’d served as Guardians. They defeated Sin. This was supposed to be their chance at a normal life.
But there would be no normal life as long as Yuna was around.
Sticking on this island, listening to everyone’s problems, wasn’t going to bring Tidus back.
This is... what she really wants?
Wakka’s words repeated in her head, so much so that she could feel them engraving on her psyche. They’d come back to her when she was alone on late nights. They’d come back to her when she was on her way to meet some diplomat. They’d come to her on every Calm anniversary where she'd give speeches and end the night alone.
Once, it was easy to know what she wanted. She wanted to defeat Sin. She wanted to make everyone happy. And that meant she would die, which she had accepted.
But what was she allowed to want now? Was she allowed to say it out loud? Was she allowed to even dream of him? No High Summoner was meant to live after the Final Summon.
Yuna closed her eyes, pulled the blanket up, and pretended to be asleep.