2021-07-06: New Horizons For A New Generation
- Log: New Horizons For A New Generation
- Cast: Pearl, Seraph Boudicca, Gon Guado (plus his daughters)
- Where: Zanarkand Ruins
- Date: July 06, 2021
- Summary: Shortly after Gon Guado has been made to see the error of their ways in a climactic battle beyond the caverns near the summit of Mount Gagazet, his daughters backtrack and decompress in the company of two who helped support them in their endeavors. Together, the lot of them find some closure with a past they hope to leave behind. This applies so long as Spira has a future, resting on the shoulders not only on Summoners... but everyone who has supported them, in Spira and beyond.
=============================<* Zanarkand Ruins *>============================== Zanarkand was once a thriving metropolis on the northernmost point of Spira - now it is a testament to the folly of a people long since dead. It is also the source of Spira's only hope. The ruins of Zanarkand are thousands of years old, yet much of the crumbling infrastructure still stands, laid out in an unusual, enduring stone. Pyreflies flock to the location, lighting up the area and dancing among the shallow waves. The greatest concentration can be found in the heart of the ruins, in a giant dome - the pyreflies are so strong there that the entire area is almost like a sphere. Memories thought buried can resurface, given voice and physical form, only to vanish a few moments later. At the centre of the dome is said to lie the end of a Summoner's Pilgrimage - the means to obtain Final Aeon and slay Sin. BGM: Final Fantasy X - To Zanarkand
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Pearl has a habit of sitting away from the 'crowd' of drifters and occasional guardians who have made their way towards Zanarkand. The ruined city sits ahead, the end of the pilgrimage. Where Lady Yuna is headed. Where Pearl is headed too. A part of her had expected to see more Summmoners here, others trying to save Spira.
But she had not. Just the heretic thrice over.
But that was not the true reason for her relative isolation. She was trying to prepare herself for a conversation she was not expecting, and certainly not ready for. She had expected something like this eventually, revealing herself as the traitor she was. Hated enemy of Althena's Guard. Weapon of the Shadow Dragon.
Except she wasn't. So much had changed in the weeks since. SHE had changed so much in the weeks since. Too much? Or was she just pretending.
She is so lost in thought she doesn't notice Leo Jr bounce away towards approaching figures.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Boudicca, herself, tends to diffuse from crowds; for some reason, she's rarely sighted in large gatherings, afterwards. Hundreds of years of experience as a sentinel are difficult to shake. The Seraphim are, at their raw centre, a little fey.
But she has ever seen to the children of the worlds. So too does she attend now to brave Timu and Pani, strolling with them through the chill of sheltered Gagazet.
"... worry not," it's a conversation all caught in the middle, "I shall assure Ida and Azoth of your safety as soon as they catch up to us. And what of-- oh!"
Boudicca's companionable tone is shortly interrupted by a small onion fellow bouncing towards the youth. "Goodness," she exclaims, "why, hello! I understand you were helping last we met, no?"
She doesn't drag Pearl into it, immediately. Maybe she's being sensitive. Or maybe Boudicca would just straight-up talk to an onion like a small person.
<Pose Tracker> Timu Guado and Pani Guado have posed.
The first thing that happens as three figures approach the Otherworlder Summoner from within the confines and marginal comforts of the caves of Mount Gagazet - one of them starts running forward. Pearl would recognize by the sound alone that it's Pani, who runs for Leo Jr and wishes to just scoop them into a hug. The tension of meeting their father - and stopping him at last - has come and gone, and with it the release of pent-up emotions and fears. Tears go down the younger sister's face the whole time. So much remains uncertain.
While Pani buries her feelings in Leo Jr, Timu nods once - more muted in her emotions, but she also did just chug an Ether to cast that Cure spell on everyone. She's too young for that. She's already paying the price with a wicked headache.
She might not be doing that much 'better,' but in no way is she 'worse' for the events that have come to pass as the dark blue-haired Guado catches Pearl over there.
"Are you all right?" The young teenage woman asks of Pearl.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Leo Jr gives a proud "Pukyuuu!" when Boudicca speaks to him, preening a little. That, at least, pulls Pearl out of her thoughts. She looks up to see three figures approaching. "Ah. Pani, Timu. Lady Seraph." Despite Boudicca's feelings, Pearl isn't sure she's close enough to the Seraph to use her name. She's not good at this.
Leo Jr bears the weight of Pani's tears, pressing into her and rubbing his fronds against her face. "Fuu..." He will support the little Guado as best as he can. Leo Jr is friend to everyone, but also a friend to Pani.
Pearl looks up to meet Timu's gaze. "Yes. Merely tired. And preparing myself." She doesn't specify what. "What of you all?" She asks, even though Pani isn't doing greats. She stands up and moves more towards the group. She kneels down next to Leo Jr, and looks to Pani. Crying children are still not her forte. She very cautiously extends a hand, hesitant. Touch is still...
She looks up to Boudicca. "You have been watching over them, Lady Seraph?" This does not exactly surprise her, given, well, how she treated Pearl. But she's glad. *Why? You think helping a few kids makes it better?*
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
There's Pearl! Boudicca bows her head to her, when she looks up. "Greetings," she offers, with a smile. It's a smile interrupted by a glance to Pani, but... Leo Jr. seems to have comforting her well in hand, and Boudicca, herself, has never been terribly good at using hers. They fold in front of her, instead, one gauntlet over the other.
She doesn't much think Pearl needs to specify what she's preparing for; the martial artist is, after all, now a Summoner, and they're on their way to Zanarkand. "I am well," she responds, steady of voice. "Albeit... I admit some concern."
Boudicca doesn't much think she needs to specify that, either.
The Summoners are going to Zanarkand.
She dips her head in another nod, as Pearl looks up to her. "Yes," she says, with another smile. "Though, they are quite capable themselves, as well -- but it puts my mind at ease to render assistance." Boudicca glances to Timu, here, who -- despite the discomfort she seems to be in -- Boudicca is quite sure would continue toughing anything out. It's a quiet assurance.
<Pose Tracker> Timu Guado and Pani Guado have posed.
"We're preparing to go back down Mount Gagazet," Timu says, a bit downcast but that's the headache talking. She has that same cadence and atmosphere of 'undercurrent of stress and dread starting to surface on my face' like her father does. She has to speak for both of the sisters - and her father - right now, and some of that 'stress face' may be owing to that fact.
Or the sheer envy that her sister go to do it first. Either or.
Pani looks up from hugging Leo Jr, to see PEarl's outstretched hand - which she meets with her own. It may be a dissonant sort of appearance, to Pearl's reckoning - Guado hands are larger than the average human being's, and tipped in claws. And yet, when Pani parts a hand to reach out and touch Pearl's, there's a softness and gentleness that defies that.
"I'm okay... now," Pani says, not quite there but she just went through a whole lot more than someone her age ought. She knows better directly than to ask what Pearl's preparing for, because any Summoner that has braved Mount Gagazet is here for one thing.
"She hasn't left us since we met again," Timu says in a neutral tone of voice - thankful, really so, but she's tired and she has an Ether headache.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
The softness of Pani's hand is a little strange compared to the scarred, cracked mess that is hers. *How nice for her.* Pearl nods to Boudicca. "As we have seen. The two of you have done some incredible things. You should be proud of yourselves." Compliments about things other than deadliness are new to her, but she's trying. Touch, also, remains uncomfortable, but she holds Pani's hands for a few more moments, before standing up. She needs to pull back, but Leo Jr will gallantly fill the void.
She moves back to Timu- she may be older but, Pearl has seen she's not invincible, even if no one else has. "...That's good. Where I'm from, the protection of the Seraph is a valuable thing." Even if she hadn't believed in it until recently. Her look turns a bit serious. "...Will you be alright to make it back down?" There are many reasons to be concerned- the lethality of Gagazet, the vengeance of the Ronso, and the fact that Gon Guado was at the forefront of the Guado forces. Not to mention if Heldalf is down there still after the Rolancians were routed. "...Will your father be going with you?" That question is a heavy one, but... The state of that man in the end seemed like one ill equipped to protect anyone.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
The fact that they're preparing to go back down may be another reason why the breeze is wending about them so much; Boudicca, it turns out, is not returning so easily. "There is time to rest before then," she reminds her, gently. "Even the toughest Drifter eventually makes camp."
Boudicca watches Pani hold Pearl's hand, and squeezes her own. She's glad she has that much. She watches Timu, carefully, as Pearl asks that question; surely it's one she has herself. At least one of those concerns may well be addressed by her own prompt: "You have something to return to the Ronso, yes...?"
Bringing back plunder from the mountain might do something to put them back in good graces. Or... at least, stop the Ronso from doing something regrettable in their pain.
<Pose Tracker> Timu Guado and Pani Guado have posed.
Pani takes the compliments quietly, as if maybe right now she doesn't quite feel like beaming with pride or smiling. They helped stop their father, and they're still in a dangerous sacred place with the unknown in front of them and a whole lot of angry Ronso behind them. Also, more ice and a lot of Fiends, even if she can mitigate the threat levels of pyrefly clusters turning into Fiends to a point. Going anywhere, doing anything, is daunting when the reality of 'what next' falls on them.
"Thank you for helping us with our father," Pani says softly as she draws her hand back at about the same time, and Leo Jr's back there so all's okay, as Timu takes the center stage for conversation material about the protection of a Seraph being well-regarded. She looks up to Boudicca for a moment, and there is that moment of Teenager Face. Boudicca may know this from her time watching mortals. When Teenagers make Faces. About protective entities and adults who are hovering a little too close over the exploration of themselves and their broadening concept of freedom. That face. That is Timu's Teenager Face.
"We won't be leaving alone," Timu says, which is officially the handwave for those handful of Drifters who choose not to press on towards Zanarkand in favor of returning to the rest of Spira for whatever important reason that is. "...Father will be coming with us."
Last they saw, Gon wasn't talkative, but he was also shattered in mind and heart in one go and some people have had to blink and wonder if they missed watching pyreflies leave him or not. This presents its own set of problems.
"We're not leaving yet," Timu clarifies to Boudicca through the voice strained and filtered through Teenager Face, and also Teenagers Shouldn't Drink Ethers Face.
"We-we do," Pani stammers as she looks up from Leo Jr's onion-y love, which is never cheap or low-class when it comes to them, "all the gil, right...? But, the gil can't bring those who died back..." Can five digit gil buy forgiveness for a people that have caused great harm to Spira under Seymour?
Something else worries Pani, thinking about it, as the green-haired sorceress - a budding one, anyway! - looks up to the tired, conflicted Pearl with worried eyes. "I'd... be sad to see you go," she says to Pearl, as if she might not make it back alive.
Pearl by now knows the cultural reason why - if it's Pearl who helps bring the Calm, assuming Sin continues to be quelled the same way as it has been with the temporary reprieves hard-won over the years, it will come at her life.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Boudicca expouses the virute of rest. "...She's correct," she says, like a huge freaking hypocrite. "If you aren't aware, Drifter is the Filgaian term for someone who goes into long abandoned ruins with little regard to their life in order to eke out an existence." She pauses. "And sometimes they face world ending threats." She realises Pani's fathers opinion of them might be low. Maybe she just wanted to say that. She turns to Pani when Boudicca says there's something to return. "...We found a large sum of gil too. Why would someone bring so much with them to Zanarkand?"
"You're welcome. Even I could not reject such an earnest request." She doesn't say who it came from, she's not here to embarrass Timu. Timu, who is right now giving a face Amy had given Pearl several times, with much less lethal intent. She looks down. *Wondering if she's alright? After you abandoned her on the Blue Star?*
"That's good," Pearl says a little cautiously. They came to stop their father. They are bringing them back. "Just be careful." She pauses, trying not to clamp down on her- far be it from her to deny someone their freedom, now she had just earned hers. "You still have to bring the world of Blitzball to it's knees." And maybe be someone's Guardian.
And then Pani brings her pause. She looks away. "...Thank you. You are one of the few who would." She pauses. Pani said she wanted to be a summoner. A child, so young, ready to rush to death to save her world. Those important to her. "...I hope... I hope the calm lasts long enough you never have to take that journey. But if you do, I think you could have no finer Guardian at your side. The two of you have braved the hardest part. You can do it again." She should be talking her out of it, but... Pani has stronger reasons than hers.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Oh no! Not the Teenager Face! Boudicca smiles, self-conscious, and lifts her hands palm-up as if to say, 'oops'. "I am sure you will take good care of him," is her actual apology, with regards to Gon, and it's not a placation. Gon, as he is, needs someone to look out for him. Or a couple of someones!
She looks to Pani, now, still a gentle breeze. "It is not about the money," which is easy for Boudicca to say, given her shaky grasp on economics. "It is about... returning something which was left on their mountain. No matter if we found some weapon or defensive charm, I would advise just the same. They are stewards of this place."
To Pearl, she pauses, and considers, thoughtfully: "Perhaps they meant to make an offering? Mortals do such things, at times, though I myself was rarely beneficiary." Why a Seraph wouldn't receive the gifts of the faithful is a question Boudicca doesn't offer answer to.
(The idea that Boudicca is someone people make offerings to may only increase Timu's Teenager Face. This is a risk she will simply have to take.)
She's quiet, respectfully, at the exchange of worries between the young girl and the young Summoner. (Pearl still seems quite young, to Boudicca; but then, Boudicca cheats.) She has her own thoughts, of course, on the brutality of the Summoner's sacrifice. It is a thing which runs distaff to her own pact, immortals pledged to live. It is...
A thing which drops the smile from her face, to silent worry. She keeps her silence. This is the choice Pearl made, and the choices of humans are worth protecting.
It's only after those assurances that something more pertinent than her protests occurs, to Boudicca. "Ah --" she starts, lifting a hand, towards Pearl. It falls back down to her side, as she tries to organise her thoughts. "Pearl... the Calm is a time where Aeons rest, is it not?" Boudicca, in fact, doesn't know the fate of other Summoners, when one completes the Calm; it's an educated guess. "Before... before then..." It's careful, evasive; she does not say, in so many words, before Pearl might well die.
She feels a touch invasive herself, asking this; but that, she thinks, is why she really must say it. If it is hard for her, it must be immeasurably harder, for children steeped in Guado culture. "You are pacted to Leviathan, yes? I wonder... if you could call your Aeon, here, for us." Boudicca bows, and implores: "Please."
<Pose Tracker> Timu Guado and Pani Guado have posed.
"Drifter," Timu repeats that word as she is enlightened on what they call themselves, rather than what everyone on Spira has been calling them ("Otherworlders,"), hearing about the harrowing nature of their work and how much that tracks. They sure have been inviting themselves into dangerous, forbidden places almost 'just because.'
Pani inwardly wonders if these Drifters all bring 'Calms' to Filgaia too, and never voices about how she has overhead some grumbling about doors back at Guadosalam when they would visit. She's not quite that curious enough to ask.
"...Yeah," Timu says, tiredly to Pearl, but trying to face up as she holds her Blitzball further. "My father played Left Defense for the Glories when he was younger," she says. "He talked about how much he enjoyed it, so I took it up a few years ago." She thinks about it, holding up the ball with her left hand. "I think I'm going to start playing Right Defense instead," unsolicited... and bows her head, equal parts headache and reverence to Pearl, even with Teenager Face. "I'll... we'll make it."
Pani looks up as Pearl guiltily looks away and mentions how she'd be one of the few who would. "All who become High Summoners are always revered in Spira. I don't know why people wouldn't be sad... you're so kind." Pani doesn't know the half of it. Or the fourth. Or the eighth. Maybe the sixteenth? Maybe. It's always impossible to hide that last sixteenth of sadness and hardship.
Boudicca talks about how it's returning something left on their mountain... and Pani nods along, slowly, although she's not sure the Ronso would ever forgive them. She's a little chilled even now seeing how angry and sad they were, how close they might have been to being subject to their rage were it not for timely assistance by Boudicca there.
Boudicca mentions being pacted to Leviatahn, and Pani looks up. "Leviathan...?"
Timu finds a momentary lift out of her Ether headache. "That's the Fayth you were trying to meet..."
"It is..." Pani looks to Pearl. "I... I hope the next Calm lasts a long, long time too. Spira has been repenting for so long," as ha been the stated reason as to why Sin keeps attacking, answering to Pearl's well wishes about hoping they never have to take the journey - and nods with some excitement about how she already has a fine Guardian at her side. "We did... we really did, thanks to the Seraph."
Timu's Teenager Face suggests she might have second thoughts about going up Mount Gagazet again. It is not a leisurely tourist visit. It's a grueling, journey-ending place of freezing death.
"...L-Lady Pearl," Pani backs away from Leo Jr to make the Yevon bow. "May I please... may I please have the honor of meeting them? Your Aeon..."
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Pearl takes a mment to think. "...Perhaps. An offering to Gagazet for safe passage. That would make sense." When the Lady Seraph asks her questions, Pearl pauses. She should be able to answer that, but her training was hardly complete. "..I believe so. But..." But she can't be sure.
And then a pause. "...It is hard to imagine Sir Gon enjoying anything." What kind of man was he then? "I think you'll do well." She can't say for sure, she's never really studies Blitzball. But Timu is determined, and talented. And having won her own freedom, she'll be able to make her way.
Pearl goes quiet again. What can she say do that? "I..." Her voice is tight, choked. "I'm not. Not with... what I've done." She's quiet, near silent.
*That's it. You're no summoner. Just a monster. Crush her image. Let her know the truth. Let her hate you, like she should. Like everyone should.*
And then Boudicca asks her a question, and Pearl's eyes go wide. "Wh-" Why would a Seraph seek to meet an Aeon? And then Pani seconds it, the Fayth she wanted to meet. She bows to her, and Leo Jr bows too, withoput the hand movements. "I-"
Something rumbles in her soul. Stop sulking, they seem to say. You're a fighter, aren't? A summoner?
Pearl takes a deep breath, and nods. "...Not it here. It might be too tight for them. But there's a wider space up ahead." Pearl leads on, stepping out into the snow with simple boots. She takes her staff from her back, and casts it to her side, still held.
She brings it close, then out again in a circular motion, before lowering the tip of the staff to touch the ground, and then she twirls, raising the staff to hold it above her head in both hands, and spins into an impossible pirouette on the snow. A pool of water appears under her and around her, and then the water rumbles.
And then something bursts from the water, spiralling up around Pearl before reaching their full height, the great Serpent of the Sea. They lower their head to next to Pearl, and she places a hand on it, before turning to the others.
"Timu, Pani, Seraph Boudicca. This is Leviathan, Lord of All Waters."
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"Your father was a Blitzball player..?" Surprise dawns on Boudicca's face, as if she'd never thought of the regrettable man behind so many atrocities as a sports person. (She does not use the term 'Blitzballer' correctly, but then, she is an Otherworlder, after all.) Mortals sure are complicated! "Right Defence sounds grand," she agrees, a moment later. "I shall look forward to seeing your victories." In the blitz sphere, not the battlefield!
Pani doesn't know why they'd be sad, and strangely, there's sorrow in Boudicca's eyes to hear it. She does not correct her. Here, the last sixteenth.
The Ronso might never forgive them. But... Boudicca can always hope. The Guado are no monolith; Timu and Pani prove that better than anyone.
Her hand comes to clasp at her heart, all separated from each other by all that steel and flesh's best estimations. Pearl may not know how to answer her question, but Pani does, well enough. Spira's repentance...
All these worlds separated from Althena's side, all of them dying. Even this lost archipelago, isolated by such stormy seas. What implication, this, seen with rogue eyes? She wonders. "You have worked hard," she says, instead. A smile returning to her, as Pani thanks her. "Here, as ever. It was not so difficult to aid you -- either of you. In time you shall be as mighty as any of us. Though," she adds, with an extra glance to Timu, "if I might be so bold, I hope you will not ascend Gagazet without due cause. I am a spirit of the wind, and not even I could shape its gale unerringly." It is, after all, a holy mountain. She's a foreign holy influence.
(She also might have been so impressed by it that she didn't WANT to stop the howling winds, entirely. But this is not about that.)
Pani's reaction at once tells Boudicca she was correct to ask, though anxiety stabs through her heart to see Pearl stammer. For a moment, she wonders if she has transgressed, before Pearl presents a perfectly fine explanation: Leviathan is too big for the cavern.
"Oh!" Boudicca exclaims, a hand to her mouth. Her braids fly up around her on a breeze, because when you're an air ghost your hair gets to be as expressive as you want it to be. "Of course! I ought have anticipated such a difficulty." She hurries off behind Pearl, of course, out into the open air.
Not too close, though. She's seen Yuna summoning; she knows Pearl needs her space.
Water... Boudicca feels, in this moment, she's the wrong Oracle to witness this, but she is the one who is here, in this moment.
"Ah--!" She gasps, as Leviathan spirals, and lowers themself down to Pearl's level. She takes a step forward, hand curling at her chest, before she bows to the Aeon. "It is lovely to meet you on better terms," she says, though she knows from experience that Aeons are more taciturn spirits than she. "I feel that Pearl still has quite the journey ahead of her... look out for her, will you not?"
Boudicca shakes her head, straightening up. "I say that, but you already have Leviathan's support... so it is rather an unnecessary request," she says, properly to Pearl now, and her tone all the more sheepish for it.
<Pose Tracker> Timu Guado and Pani Guado have posed.
Pani's tears dry under the childlike excitement of getting to see the Aeon of the Fayth she really wanted to try praying to, so much so that she's willing to run right out into the snow after Pearl picks an appropriate place for the Lord of All Waters to form.
As if this would be the capstone of her experience going through Mount Gagazet, when it's not over yet becuase they'd... have to go back down and that'll be its own journey.
Timu follows suit with an extra spring in her step because it's her little sister going right back out into the cold, and adherenc to Boudicca's warning about how she - a spirit of the wind - couldn't even re-shape the punishing gales of Mount Gagazet.
As Pearl brings forth her Aeon - her hard-won companion, the fruit of her efforts in infiltrating and appropriating the ways of the Summoner - both of them go through the usual formalities in thanks. The Yevonite greeting.
They'd better be! An Aeon has been called basically for the entertainment of a child, after all.
"Thank you for gracing us with your presence," Pani says the words with such an even tone and immense gratitude, even when the howling cold does not give a hoot that a terrible man has been stopped from continuing to fight for an even more terrible man, because Mount Gagazet, as a holy mountain, is a trial and it will stay that way.
Timu does her best to fight off the Ether headache in the face of an Aeon, but she is not the one with the immense enthusiasm for the Aeons and the Fayth that bestow them like her little sister.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
Leviathan is a large aeon, they tower over Pearl. She's sure this breaks all sorts of regulations, but she's not exactly a summoner of Yevon. And the first Summoners can't have been either, a part of her reflects. But she's unlikely to be the birth of a new tradition. Even if she succeeds, she's not likely to be remembered at all. Probably for the best.
Without Pearl's words, Leviathan leans down, and snakes in front of the Guado and the Seraph, their giant eyes taking the three of them in. Pearl walks over, slowly as she maintains her concentration, walking next to Pani. "If you would like," she says, extending a hand out and placing a hand on their scaled hide, "do as I do." The offer is mainly to Pani, but extended to the other two. It's rare one can feel what an Aeon is like, without facing one in battle. They feel rough, but also like the surging waters. The power of the seas. The roar of one seeking freedom. The raw desire to fight the strongest foes. Maybe that resonates with Pearl more than she thinks.
A low growl eminates from the Lord of All Waters, and Pearl blinks, and nods. "....Pani. Would you like to see a view only a summoner could see?" She would not have thought of this, not without the urging of the companion of her soul. The silver haired summoner assumes yes, as she launches herself up and secures herself behind Leviathan's fin. "...Timu, Lady Seraph, could you help her up? Behind that fin. I warn you, they're not the most comfortable seat."
Why not help her up herself, though?
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
Aeons are not typically summoned for reasons such as this, but perhaps one spirit is privileged to request audience with another. Or, perhaps, Boudicca is naive enough to the ways of Yevon that she was empowered to ask.
(Which might say something about Pearl herself, answering, but Boudicca notes that away and puts it aside.)
Pearl offers connection with them, and Boudicca, as if to model what may be done, steps forward to lightly place a gauntlet-clad hand on Leviathan's scales. Light is the word: though her armour looks heavy, her touch is akin to feathers. She is shaped like Pearl, but here, in herself, is the yearning to be like the mortals she loves. A figurine by someone who longed to see a swan.
The breeze rustles past those rough scales, and Boudicca smiles. She does not try, so much, to speak with Leviathan again. She has some sense of the differences, from what she has seen of the Aeons. Even so, she can see Leviathan, here, unlike the way she averted her eyes in the wake of their Fayth.
Pearl, too, has an offer of sight, and should Pani wish to see what Pearl offers to show her, Boudicca will gladly help Timu heft her up. Her self-perception is quite muscular, beneath the soft exterior. It's not at all difficult to lift her the rest of the way, up to the fin, hands steadying her as she finds her seat before Boudicca steps back.
"'Tis the most grand experience," she assures her, though her experiences astride Aeons are at Yuna's back. "You shall not soon forget it."
<Pose Tracker> Timu Guado and Pani Guado have posed.
Both of the young Guado weapon step up when offered, Pani much, much more enthusiastically than Timu (who remains enthused, mind, but there is a vastly more quantifiable amount of it from the younger). They take in the texture and the feelings. An exhilarating feeling of freedom - something the two of them chased when they tried to escape Guadosalam to Bevelle. The endless storms of the Thunder Plains are much different from the tumultuous seas, but the rain did drench them as lightning threatened to end their journey. All this to stand against the strongest possible thing they knew in their rapidly broadening worldview before it was breached and thus expanded: their wayward father and their peoples' fanatic devotion to Seymour.
For a moment, a likeness between them. A growl follows, and it's Timu whose touch loosens.
Pani doesn't... and with that, the offer from Pearl, as she looks up with a new youthful warmth that might be just enough to stave off the cold (not entirely... but Timu is there to take care of that aftermath).
"Yes, I... I humbly accept," Pani is trying so hard to stay polite and formal about this but she's a child, and this is amazing.
Timu nods once after regaining her composure. She works up enough through the Ether Headache for one more Fire-aspected Cure spell as she works side-by-side with the enormous, powerful-looking Boudicca whose heart and touch is as light and soft as feathers.
Pani takes her place behind that fin with help, and Timu stands back to watch, most of the Teenager Face going away as something wonderful is about to take place.
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
...
In the caves beyond, there is an approaching lanky silhouette.
<Pose Tracker> Pearl has posed.
When Pani does not recoil from the growl, Pearl realises she is making the right decision. Or at least a good wrong decision. Boudicca seems to know what is expected, and with Timu's help they get her on to the body of the Aeon. Pearl looks back.
"Hold on tight. It will be fast."
And then Leviathan surges forward, circling the the clearing quickly, building up speed. Leviathan is a being of the sea. They cannot fly.
But they can leap.
Leviathan launches into the sky like they were breaching the sea, and even the mighty winds of Gagazet will not see the Lord of All Waters from their course. "Keep your eyes open!" Pearl shouts over the winds, trying to ensure Pani sees everything. Gagazet is the highest point on Spira- and right at this second, Leviathan is barely above it. Zanarkand is visible, the Calm Lands, visible, maybe even the far forests of Macalania and the clouded Thunder Plains. It's only a moment, but the three of them- Pani, Pearl and Leviathan- might as well be the top of the world.
And then Leviathan flares it's sidefins, and glides to the ground. It's not a slow glide, but it's a safe landing, and that view lasts a little longer, before the serpent lands on it's tail, coiling and then lowering to the ground. Even Pearl does not jump off immediately. Even to her, that view is something important. A view of what she's fighting for here. And somewhere beyond the ocean, another world she fights for. That was not how she had ever thought. Was this as much for her as Pani? She looks back, to see Pani's expression. She's so focused there that even the ever alert Pearl does not notice the silhouette in the cave.
But on the other hand, that inner voice that eats at her? Right now it's silent.
<Pose Tracker> Seraph Boudicca has posed.
"'Tis a wondrous thing to behold, as well," Boudicca says, to Timu, as Leviathan crashes up into the sky. "... there will be time to relax presently," she adds, quietly, in recognition of her Curing efforts. She doesn't have to get another Ether headache! "You would make a fine healer, were you to wish it. Though... you know, my betters in the art once told me... that magic was best used as an aid to the body, rather than something to overwhelm it. Maybe such a notion will help you, too..?" This, she offers with a light pause, and acknowledgement that for all her overbearingness, Boudicca is not infallible, either; she's been taught lessons, just the same. Perhaps it may soothe Timu's Teenager Face a little more. Boudicca can only hope.
The ability to jump with style, of course, is a noble skill; Boudicca's own spite of gravity has more to do with jumping and floating than true flight, after all. She can imagine the feelings they might well feel, all the way up there.
There's a breeze coming out of the cave, for some reason. It's warm. It might have something to do with the way Boudicca glanced back, there.
She's looking forward when Pani and Pearl land, though. Boudicca claps her hands together, grey-green eyes shining. "Congratulations, Pani! What a marvellous thing to experience! Perhaps," she says, smiling, "perhaps, you have reached higher into Spira than any Guado ever has." She truly is happy for her.
<Pose Tracker> Timu Guado and Pani Guado have posed.
Pani doesn't need to be told to keep her eyes open - they are so very, very wide with excitement that stands to shatter the stereotypical Guado gaze of mild disdain, even if all of Spira - nay, the world! - is technically under her nose in this exciting moment. Spira, long treated as a land of death, sees a breath of incredible life and zest for something better, something greater.
Pani's eyes are not limited to Spira - she dares to look out to the seas themselves, as if taking in some of the influence of Leviathan's feelings. The Lord of All Waters have had their dreams dashed by Sin prowling the oceans, who gave her a taste of what it's like to have won the favor of a Fayth, and in the time they are in the sky, her imagination wanders.
She will have her heart, mind, and soul - but especially her eyes - stay in that sky even hours after the descent and the landing. She coughs a few times from the chill and the thin oxygen, but recovers from just this taste of feeling truly alive. When Pearl looks upon Pani's face...
She may see a joy that Pearl herself was robbed of, but never taken of the ability to give it to others... or receive it herself.
On terra firma (aqua firma?? that makes no sense but they are in ice and snow), Timu's eyes track her sister having the life-affirming, dream-changing ride of her life on the back of an Aeon. It takes her a moment to lock a gaze back upon the Oracle of Moor Gault, and a good friend who - without their help - they never would've been able to come this far. She gets a smile up on that Teenager Face. Ether Headache will be harder to work through, but she fights that smile through it.
"I'm never going to be my father," Timu says to her capacity as a healer and someone who could use it to enhance one's self, which at face value can be taken as resignation - she appears to only have access to Althenian Fire, rather than Fire and Ice like her father. That he has a grasp of two opposing elements and held such potential in an art meant for mending, reinforcing, and nurturing gave him the capacity to master Spira's unique spellcasting disciplines within White Magic. That such mastery bolstered his own body in his martial combat. Nonetheless, such mastery was used in a manner that stood to be so uniquely destructive in his final desperate gambit by giving theroetically eternal life to a dire Fiend.
<Pose Tracker> Gon Guado has posed.
The silhouette leans from behind the cave, sunken eyes of a defeated, still shirtless older man of a Guado, hearing those words - 'I'm never going to be my father' - and know that she is not saying that as praise for his sorcerous acumen. As Boudicca and Timu move forth to receive a happy, smiling Pani, he unblinkingly bears witness to collective happiness and self-actualization.
Happiness and self-actualization that was almost sacrificed at the altar of Seymour's ambitions, as those tired eyes look to all of them. The Wind Seraph of a spiritual nature capable of an everyday existence alongside mortals. An Otherworlder who has taken a Yevon discipline and made it her own to the approval of a Fayth. His own daughters, of the Guado, throwing off the shackles of their decadent, exploitative lifestyles and worldview of the eternally grieving people of Spira...
And the faint horror that plagues all those starting to get on in years - not knowing what can possibly come next, in this moment.
Uncertainty lingers, as it had before. It's a veritable powder keg of emotion long since detonated, smoke in its wake with enough embers flying far and wide. Its smoggy cloud only stands to spread because of once unconsidered ideas of the ramifications - but there seems to be no stopping this from clearing away to reveal its aftermath. The Otherworlders - no, the Drifters - have already asserted their presence by challenging the rot of the Yevon faith within Spira, having now chased destiny towards Zanarkand and making their position clear through deed as much as word.
'They'll create their place,' is the only thing close to a comforting thought as he walks back into the cave. (Perhaps one day, he will reach those more optimistic thoughts, and that couldn't come soon enough.)
===============<* Dream Chasers BBS - (IC) Rumors *>================
Message: 8/3 (12w 6d) Posted Author A Serpent Above Gagazet Jul 08 2021 Pearl
With the number of drifters gathering around Gagazet and making their way up to it's peak towards Zanarkand, there was a sighting of something unusual yesterday.
For a few moments, one would have seen a large blue serpent in the sky above Gagazet, as though it had leapt into the sky, before it made a gliding descent down to a clearing on the mountain, where no trace of it was found.
There are questions of a giant fiend on the mountain, but a few claim they saw two riders on it. Those familiar with it would recognize it as the Aeon Leviathan- and the faithful may be uncomfortable with it. The eagle eyed could make out a little of the riders: A silver haired humanoid, and a green haired child.
But even the Ronso could call it an unusual sight.