2020-09-19: Home Is Where The Heart Is
- Log: Home Is Where The Heart Is
- Cast: Seymour Guado, Belize, Yuna
- Where: The Al Bhed Home
- Date: September 19, 2020
- Summary: Amid the chaos of The Battle of Home, Yevon comes to collect their wayward daughter. Seymour seeks a bride. Belize finds a friend. Yuna makes a choice.
=============================<* The Al Bhed Home *>============================= Home ec yh ihtanknuiht vundnacc rettah yset dra Bikanel tacand, yht dra calnad rusa uv dra Al Bhed baubma. Yc dra nacd uv Spira tacbecac dra Al Bhed vun hud vummufehk dra daylrehkc uv Yevon, dra mulydeuh uv Home ec draen sucd lmucamo-kiyntat calnad. Tacbeda cdyhtehk yd dra raynd uv y tacand uh y tacandat ecmyht, Home drnejac dryhgc du dra mepanym ica uv najedymewat machina - sucd byndelimynmo yh yhleahd tajela dryd dybc ehdu taab ihtanknuiht yxievanc dryd gaab dra ledo, edc baubma, yht edc lnubc ymeja. Yhofrana oui muug, tuwahc suna meddma machina lyh pa caah, vnus meddma tnuhac lynnoehk bundyka du suna tyhkanuic faybuhc, tacekhat du bnudald dra ledo. Ihtan dra maytancreb uv Cid, dra Al Bhed ryja knufh du dra buehd frana ajah Home ec cdnadlrehk ved du pincd; du gaab rec ouihk baubma ullibeat, ra cahtc dras uh feta-nyhkehk secceuhc du nalujan yhleahd sylreha - YHO yhleahd machina - yht pnehk dras pylg du dra lahdna uv draen bufan. PKS: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=85reVt-IF7s
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
Home.
It is a place that few have seen -- Spiran or Otherworlder -- because the Al Bhed are secretive. By some lucky twist of fate, Yuna came to Home before others are whisked here by accident. The Al Bhed made no hesitation and spared no efforts to capture her.
Indeed, one could argue this is the safest place on Spira.
It has been a pitched battle for the invading Yevonites. Guado and Warrior Monk forces have pushed their way in; the Guado spearheaded it, with their familiarity with tunnel fighting. Just outside of the Summoner's Sanctum, a young Al Bhed man is slammed back against the wall -- and then Biggs Guado slams his broadsword through his neck, with a splash of blood. He crumples, sputtering, against the door.
Wedge cracks his knuckles. His armored gauntlets are also splattered in blood, and dead Al Bhed and Guado lay on the floor. Wedge cracks his neck, then looks back at his compatriots.
"That's the last of them," Wedge says. He glances at the door. "You think she's through there?"
"Only one way to find out," Biggs says. "Let's blow this thing open."
<Pose Tracker> Belize has posed.
Anyone who would argue that there is such a thing as a 'safest place on Spira' would be a fool, for there is no such thing.
Belize is no healer, but that doesn't mean they can't support the Guado as they push through the unnatural metal hallways of Home. Their nose wrinkles even as they cast power-enhancing spells on their allies and energy-draining spells on their foes. It's possible that their presence is one reason for why Home has become so overrun.
At least they haven't called upon their trump card. For one, Leviathan simply would not fit inside these cramped quarters.
Wedge and Biggs finish up. Belize steps forward. "Allow me," they state, clear and cold as the aeon they proceed to summon. From within a massive crystal of ice, Shiva bursts onto the scene. Though she may not be known for her raw strength, she is still more than strong enough to freeze an electronic lock into uselessness and lift up the automatic door. Once she freezes it in place to keep it from falling back down, she gracefully steps aside.
Belize flips their bangs and strides forward, shoulders high, back straight. Shiva watches them go in; then she vanishes in a cloud of pyreflies, her work here done.
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
The Al Bhed knew what they were doing when they moved on Yuna: they were beating the Guado to her, and moving her to a more defensible -- their most defensible -- location. When they explained that to her after she woke up from the sleeping gas, building a communication bridge out of her broken, babyish version of their language, and their sometimes better command of hers, she was horrified. But not for herself.
She could not dissuade them.
Desert dust drifts downward from the many-piped ceiling of the Summoner's Sanctum. More than one electrical fire has already broken out. There will be no evacuation, however. Not yet.
Increasingly, it feels like not at all.
This has every hallmark of a last stand.
And they wouldn't even accept white magic reinforcement -- the blessings of Yevon, anathema.
Yuna wonders, as she faces the triple ranks of Al Bhed backs that stand between their kidnapped summoners and the door, if they are second-guessing that choice now. SHE is. Not because of the increasingly doomed feeling of their attempt to protect her, but because of the price they're so willing to pay. There's only one sacrifice she deems acceptable in this world, and that's her own.
She dreamed of meeting her mother's people -- her people -- for so long and for so many reasons.
And now they are dying for her. Inviting destruction of their Home, for her. Someone they don't even know. Someone many of them, now, can never meet. Not even on the Farplane. They have no memories together.
Her heart is breaking. She thought she'd known what that felt like, at Mi'ihen, at Kilika, in Besaid. In Bevelle, the night of the biggest party in the world. On Filgaia, when she told a boy -- The Boy -- that they couldn't be together. Those were just appetizers. The wanton carnage of Sin feels much more natural disaster than war crime, especially for a society that has endured it for a thousand years. And love hurts... but not like this.
The door is forced open.
The Al Bhed open fire together, as though a single finger is pulling dozens of triggers all at once.
Behind them, Pacce covers his ears. Maroda and Isaaru are standing in a triangle formation in front of him, the better to block his line of sight. Dona stands a little bit apart, her face a welter of complex emotions that, at best, average out to some kind of miserable disgust.
Yuna meets their eyes. She can't be heard; no one could be, over the machina roar.
But she doesn't have to be.
They nod as one.
Even though they never asked for this -- never agreed to it -- never wanted it, not at all --
-- they will not let the Al Bhed fight alone.
Three summoners' rods raise in unison, pyreflies soaring, then clustering. Dona's Ifrit, Isaaru's Valefor, and Yuna's Ixion explode into existence. Ifrit for Kilika, Dona's home. Valefor for Besaid, a place that Isaaru never knew he'd love.
Ixion for the Al Bhed. Lightning, for these lovers of electricity. And also because Djose's fayth is the most ordinary Spiran citizen imaginable. Just a person, rather than a warrior, priestess or scholar.
And the Al Bhed are people too.
They're all just... people.
The air grows heavy with a cataclysmic gathering of power.
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
"They're gonna shoot, soon as that thing is open," Wedge says. The wiry monk stays back a short distance. "Get ready."
"Warrior Monks!" Biggs bellows. A glance at Belize -- then he looks away from them, and back towards the half-dozen human Warrior Monks. "Forward!"
They rush up. They head into the breach first, and Biggs Guado watches impassively as human kills human. He feels that faint pang of regret -- not at their deaths, but his own passive lack of feeling as soldiers under his command run into fire, returning some, and then fall down dead or wounded. No one really thinks about it, in the moment.
The way, despite all the pyreflies, sometimes a few motes of a black and violet light waft and drift from him. The Malevolence isn't long for this world, and yet after so much time on Filgaia, it always comes back when he gets far enough from the pyreflies.
But he and Wedge both stop, as Ifrit, Valefor, and Ixion all appear. In most circumstances, this would be it; Biggs raises his shield, Wedge raises his fists, and both veterans step backward. Their fear is palpable.
"Ah, ah, ah."
It's a familiar voice. It rings out, from all sides, centered on the room. It echoes eerily off the walls. It is a voice that belongs to a man who should be dead; a man who should be a world away.
And then Seymour Guado appears. He is a horror, still: his body has holes through it, and the lie that is clothing for an Unsent is clear. The holes are clean, through body and fabric alike, and have the prismatic fuzz of pyreflies at their edges. When he raises one hand, half the fingers are missing.
And so is half of his face, making his smile a ghastly and uneven thing. "None of that," he says. He throws his hand out, snaps, and three bolts of light fly out -- strike the trio of Aeons -- and those Aeons vanish in a brilliant flash of light.
"Dona. Isaaru," he says, with an even smile. A half-smile. Then he looks at Belize, fixing them with a one-eyed gaze. "And Belize. I see you are doing well."
And then he looks at Yuna, and does a little bow at the waist. "Lady Yuna. I trust you find your rescue to your liking."
<Pose Tracker> Belize has posed.
It's fortunate that Wedge gives that warning; Belize, hearing it, looks over their shoulder, then stands to one side rather than entering the Summoner's Sanctum. Their eyebrows furrow, frown deepening, as they watch warrior-monks charge in. They understand the sense of it--someone needs to clear out the Al Bhed within--but someone dear to them was one a warrior-monk. It feels... disrespectful, to treat their lives as though they're chips to be spent.
But there are other summoners in there, so it's not as though they could simply send Shiva in to freeze them all to death. Someone would be able to counter them, and they'd have the back-up of those infernal Al Bhed on their side. This is... an unfortunate necessity.
Many things in the Church of Yevon are.
Sure enough, they can sense the gathering power of aeons being called within. They're preparing to call Shiva back and stand with Wedge and Biggs when a familiar voice rings out.
'Ah, ah, ah.'
They gasp. It's reflexive, unthinking. So is the way they whirl around to face what can, just barely, be called Seymour Guado. "Maester Seymour--!" they utter, clapping a hand over their mouth in horror.
It's not just that he is clearly Unsent. It's that he somehow cannot even call up enough pyreflies to maintain a lie of livelihood.
When he reaches them in his round of greetings, tears sting their sea green eyes. They can't bring themself to speak. They simply dip into the Yevon bow to him, then back out of the way. It's as much to give him space to fight as it is to buy themself time to regain their bearings--as well as check Wedge and Biggs' reactions. They were--are--his guardians. Did they know about this...?
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna was wrong.
Love hurts EXACTLY like this.
The Al Bhed die, and they die, and they die.
And parts of her die too.
The Yevonites' deaths -- even that of the Guado -- are barely less painful. They too are just people. People dying for her.
Her heart clenches. It is not in its nature to harden; it is soft all the way through. The most it can do is shrink into itself, like the exposed flesh of a hermit crab...
People dying for nothing.
She's far too short to have been able to see or be seen through the Al Bhed initially but that situation changes rapidly as lives are shorn like sugarcane. A clear-cutting of a forest of people.
She hears Biggs and Wedge before she sees them. Belize, too.
The last time they were all together was at Macalania.
At first, the cold she feels crawling over her like rime, she assumes it's a sense memory. The slaughter of her people suddenly feels like retaliation. She could never forget their expressions, when Seymour fell. When she felled Seymour.
One more way that this is all her fault... but perhaps that is disrespectful to the legion of cousins bleeding out all around her.
But no. This is not the cold of the glacier.
She has experienced a Banishing once before; Dona and Isaaru have not, and are forced to their knees by the might of it, and the abruptness. Falling backwards would have been a more emotionally honest motion, for it as though the tightest cord between their heart, and that of their aeon's, was snapped. But physics cares nothing for that.
Yuna sways, but keeps her feet, and notices in a distant, traumatized way that the experience of a Banish was better and worse this time, on Spira instead of Filgaia. A world away, her connection to the fayth had already been stretched thin by distance, then spent down to the very last pyrefly. Those bonds roared back into full life the moment she was returned to Bikanel -- which trades a lack of summoners for a surfeit of pyreflies and fiends -- it was wonderful. But it made it harder, just now. More visceral and physical, the way Ixion was torn out of existence.
She can feel the others all around her. And Djose's fayth, too, is not so far away, not so distantly deep within her soul. In that way it was, is, easier. She could summon again. She could summon faster, fast enough, perhaps, to launch at least one enormous strike before the Banish could take hold. She could summon over and over and over until she was spent.
Or -- a far greater imperative, one her entire self screams out to perform, mind, body, and spirit -- she could Send him. She must; almost for her sake as much as his. Seymour and the others can see the pain aroused in her at the sight of him. The misery, the grief, the regret. Shock, too; she is very, very pale, pale even for the Moon, almost joining him in ghostly translucence. But she meets his gaze with a... dignity of responsibility... that is familiar, in a summoner.
She could find out if a Sending could be faster than a bullet or black magic arrow -- if indeed Belize would even stop her.
But that would also mean surrendering another race before it is even run.
There are cousins at her feet that are only wounded. Priests too. The bodies are piled high already; this is a mass grave, but it could also be a hospital, not only a tomb, if the violence stops. If it stops now.
She swallows a sudden bout of nausea; her throat burns with bile, hoarsens her voice. There are tear tracks running down her face. It's obvious she does not know they're there, or that they have been for some time.
"Seymour," she replies through the still-fading gunsmoke with a firmness that disguises her jellied legs; in death she denies him his title, for the Unsent cannot rule Spira. She might cross to him, interpose herself between him and the survivors, but she isn't sure she can even walk. "This is a massacre, not a rescue. But... I will go with you. Quietly," her throat pulses as she swallows again, "If you and your army withdraw, without any more violence."
She does not bow.
But she does say, "Please."
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
Seymour has only just returned. He hurried here a few hours ago, too, with Biggs and Wedge. The latter two took command; the Maester kept his involvement a very careful, very measured secret. Even Belize was not to know. He remained in a tent outside, when the battle began, with a robe with a hood on it over his ceremonial robes.
Now, though, that garment is shed. He stands here -- unable to even manifest a whole body -- and he looks about the room. He returns a nod to Belize; not the traditional Yevon movement of his hands, but in his state, perhaps that can be forgiven.
For Biggs and Wedge, there is a stoic, stony silence. No great surprise; no great joy, either, at their master (and, yes, their Maester) returning. Merely that cool disregard that the two guardians always seem to treat the world with.
Seymour looks back at Yuna. There is a flicker of a frown -- a scowl -- of some expression on his half a face. The missing half makes it hard to read. But those pale eyes look at her, and he considers for a moment. He feels that familiar anger, that anger not so unlike the unfairness he spoke of, once, in private. But in death, in being Unsent, there is a clarity... and a hollowness to him.
It is not a new thing. It is a refinement. A dismissal of certain obstacles; a singularity of focus, seen in many other Unsent.
"You would come with me, to Bevelle," he says. "You know what it is I seek, Lady Yuna. What my goals are--what my dreams are--and what your place in them is."
He tilts his head to the side. "And you would--" He lifts a hand, indicating for the others to stop. Biggs, who had raised his blade, ready to end an Al Bhed laying on the floor and bleeding out, stops his motion instantly.
"--come, knowing that?"
<Pose Tracker> Belize has posed.
So the Maester's guardians knew. Belize observes Biggs and Wedge's reactions, and from them--or their lack thereof--they gain the mental footholding they need to steel themself. They stand up straight, and when they look again at Seymour, they don't flinch away.
It's hard to say whether Belize would stop Yuna from Sending Seymour if it were just him. The state he's in now, it would be a mercy. But if he had the will to remain Unsent, then they can't blame him for staying, either. After all, they did. And it's for that reason--for their own sake--that they would have to stop Yuna.
Fortunately for all three of them, they don't have to.
Seymour pleasantly frames this mass murder as a rescue; Yuna denies him that illusion, but agrees to go with him if he and his armies withdraw. At least, while Belize themself would be more inclined to think of it as rescue given that the captors are Al Bhed, they're clear-sighted enough to recognize that Yuna doesn't see it that way.
The conversation now is between Yuna and Seymour; as such, Belize does not interrupt. However, they do think, 'The Al Bhed are heathens. They are guilty of countless crimes against Yevon. While it is... good, that you are unhurt, Yuna, do not be so arrogant as to think you alone can balance that out.' They glance past her at Dona and Isaaru, then at Biggs raising a blade to end an Al Bhed, and then at Seymour, who stops him with the rise of a hand.
Their eyes widen slightly. Is that mercy he hints at...? It would be just like him, if so. A flicker of hope stirs in their breast. Perhaps death had been less unkind to Seymour's mind than it had been to his body. They fold their hands at their obi, then glances again at Yuna. She might be able to see the hint of conflict in their expression before they can school it back into neutrality.
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna obviously does not see the Al Bhed as criminals. She cannot wholly keep the anguish from her expression, as she looks upon the carnage everywhere.
But she does not see Yevon as hypocrites and murderers, either. Not yet. Not entirely. Even with gun-toting Warrior-Monks everywhere.
She's easy to read, and her expression is transparent. She still believes. She believes in Yevon as both institution and religion. She believes in its mission of mercy. Of redemption, through repentance.
Surely the Al Bhed have repented enough for one day.
"Going directly to Bevelle has been both my wish and my duty since the moment our fight ended," she says simply, plainly, and with a soft, piercing dutifulness. "I must confess my crime, before the Grand Maester and all of Yevon. Surely I will pay with my life... but I yet hope that I can pay for more than only my own sins."
The Final Summoning. She still wants it. She's still going for it, even after everything, it seems.
So, indeed, she and Seymour are very much on the same page.
"I will go with you, knowing everything it means," she repeats, low and urgent, but crystal clear. Her whole world has shrunk to nothing but his lifted hand.
She takes a step forward that is more of a stagger. Then another, where she almost trips on a corpse. But the third is more steady.
By the time she reaches half a Seymour, she's almost graceful.
"Please," she says again. Someone else has expired during this discussion.
If she were a manipulative person, she might seek to appeal to Seymour more effectively than she does.
But she's only herself.
She collapses her summoning rod, tucks it away in her obi, and makes a grand enough Yevon prayer for them both. Four hands' worth.
"Please... there has been enough suffering today. Let us go in peace... together."
<Pose Tracker> Seymour Guado has posed.
Biggs and Wedge remain stone silent. They wait -- not even looking at Belize, but keeping their eyes on Seymour -- and the Maester commands the room, despite his half of a body. He looks at Yuna, and an understanding passes through him, then. She still believes; she believes in Yevon, despite all of this. It is, almost, laughable.
But if Yuna were a laughable idiot, then all of this would have been so much easier.
"Very well, then," Seymour says. He flicks his hand to the side. Biggs withdraws his sword, dropping the boy to the ground. Wedge's fists drop. A little blood drips from the armored gauntlets, but no fresh blood is spilled.
Seymour looks down at Yuna, standing before him. He stares down at her, for a moment longer. "We will make our way to Bevelle. Biggs, Wedge," he says. He looks at the Guado Guardians and nods. "Please, escort Lady Yuna from here. It is dangerous."
The two Guado Guardians nod. In unison, with a practiced familiarity, they step up beside her -- Biggs's gauntleted hand and Wedge's gloved hand each taking her arm -- but there isn't much roughness. A careful grip, to be sure she does not try the Sending.
"Belize," Seymour says, "we make our leave. The innocents..."
Seymour closes his eyes. Pyreflies swirl to him -- hundreds of them, filling in the holes and gaps. His face fills in, too, and Belize has their answer: Seymour isn't so weak that he walked around in that half-formed state. He chose to.
He smiles, but it never reaches his pale eyes. "...the innocents shall be spared."
<Pose Tracker> Belize has posed.
To return to Bevelle and repent--to die for her sins... Belize's eyes widen as their brows sink. So Yuna still intends to take on Sin... If she means to attain the Final Aeon and do battle with Sin, then win or lose, they could certainly find it in their heart to forgive her for murdering Seymour. They liked Yuna, and still like her; to have hated her even somewhat this past year for her role in Seymour's death hurt. Amazing that there are things that *can* still hurt, even after death. But... for her, death is all that awaits. May hers be a peaceful, quiet one.
"You'll need further training, then," Belize remarks. "I am willing to assist you with that..." She glances at Seymour. "...by Maester Seymour's leave."
But first, of course, are Seymour's own orders. They watch as Biggs and Wedge take hold of Yuna, not roughly, but not so gently that she could try anything... untoward, toward their master. It's a bitter sort of relief. So, too, is the sight of pyreflies swirling around Seymour, masking his horrible form and granting him a mien of normalcy.
Their breath catches momentarily. Until now, they hadn't realized just how manipulative Seymour could be.
'The innocents... the innocents shall be spared.'
...or how cruel. After all, the Al Bhed are guilty of many serious crimes.
All the same, it isn't as though they're different. If Yuna is to trade her life for Sin's defeat, then it's best to let her keep a few scraps of innocence. It's not as though she needs to know what happened here before she's escorted from Bevelle to the Calm Lands and beyond.
They return his smile, tight and cold. "So it shall be, my Maester." They hesitate a split-second; then they make their decision, and conclude, "...my friend."
They will leave with him without further ado.
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna is not a laughable idiot. A terrible tension in her spine relaxes when Seymour finishes his gesture, and the child is released. And she does not resist being taken in hand. Lifting her chin, she matches his gaze with only a single swallow.
Tears are jarred loose from her eyes again when her lids close, at the sight of him summoning the rest of himself. At the implications, which are many and horrible.
But she keeps her promise.
Biggs and Wedge are not quite far enough from the Summoner's Sanctum when the sound of Yevonite machine-pistol fire rebounds down the metal hallways.
"No!" Yuna cries -- and struggles, fruitlessly, to escape, forcing them to handle her less gently. She is very small, and of course not much of a warrior; she cannot even fight them effectively enough to mount a sufficient threat to bother knocking out.
It is over quickly, anyway. The three of them hear the last gunshot BECOME the last gunshot, echo and echo without another one rendering it merely penultimate.
Yuna saves no one.
Not even herself.