2023-02-28: Daddy Issues
- Log: Daddy Issues
- Cast: Yuna, Tidus
- Where: The Fahrenheit
- Date: February 28, 2023
- Summary: Shortly before Sin, Tidus and Yuna have a conversation about their fathers.
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
When she first was on the Fahrenheit, Yuna tended to really keep to herself; she felt like an intruder among the Al Bhed -- undoubtedly because she continues to blame herself for Seymour's slaughter of their people. But a long time has passed since then, and she's grown more comfortable.
Still, her favorite place is at the rear of the ship; Yuna, it's fair to say, has an addiction to the sky. If she can't be outright up on the deck -- which is too cold and too loud to stay on for long -- she is most often in that cargo hold, surrounded by windows. She restrains herself from pushing her nose up against them by only the barest of margins sometimes.
Kimahri is rarely far from her, but now is one such time. The great Ronso has made himself scarce. It isn't the airship that makes him feel that her safety is guaranteed, surely. It must be someone else.
Yuna has a thoughtful expression as she stares out at the endless blue Spiran sky, broken occasionally by a fluffy white cloud. There's ocean below, but so far below that it, too, almost feels like more sky. Like it could just go on forever. But it's preferable to the melancholy she carried for so long, after Zanarkand. She barely seems sad at all today.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
It *has* been a long time. Tidus isn't the type to weigh himself down with culpability for what other people have done--if he were, his attitude towards Sin would be very different from what it is now--but it's not as though he doesn't understand what it feels like to think you could've done more.
His Al Bhed has gotten really good, in fact. He's still got an accent, but Rikku's complimented it from time to time. Sure, maybe she's just being nice, but Rikku isn't the type to lie just to make someone feel better.
It's after talking to a couple of Al Bhed mechanics on board that he learns that Yuna's out towards the stern. Not exactly shocking, as it *is* her favorite place to be, but it does prompt Tidus to head on over that way. He's a little surprised when he does; usually there's *someone* around Yuna, but right now she's alone. It makes him hesitate--just watch her from behind for a while. But... she doesn't seem like she's out here to *be* alone. So after a moment, he walks up to her.
"Hey, Yuna," he calls, falling into step next to her. He'd do it anyway, but just looking at her makes him smile. "Enjoying the view?" He turns his gaze out towards the skies drifting below. The ocean is endless, but also just a blue blip at the bottom of the sky. "It really is an amazing view," he concludes aloud. "No wonder you're always looking out at it."
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna brightens, radiant, when Tidus joins her; so much so that it briefly calls into question her prior mood after all. Because the difference is just that large. But then, she doesn't have to be sad for that to make sense.
She just has to care for Tidus very much -- and be very happy in his company.
"Yes," she agrees. If she were a more glib or flippant person, she might have said it while looking at Tidus, and meant that he was an amazing view; but she isn't, and she's not. "I was just... thinking."
A pause, until she remembers that she has to explain herself. Sometimes these pauses feel like they're caused by how she DOESN'T have to elaborate inside her own head, where a continuous and lively conversation is being conducted at all times. Even before she had eleven -- eleven! -- fayth sharing her soul, Yuna already had, shall we say, an active inner life. Now it's hyperactive.
"About the future," she clarifies. "And... the past."
Her smile turns slightly shy, an expression she sometimes makes when she's contemplating their fathers. She knows well that it doesn't do to speak too well of Jecht. She even increasingly understands why.
"Afterwards," incredible, unprecedented, this recent span of time where the summoner is even capable of contemplating such an era, "Do you think... you will play more blitzball?" She sounds like she'd like that, but also, not like she's desperately anticipating it. Less hopeful and much more curious, more open to any answer.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
It really is like a pair of mirrors, reflecting each other's brightness. When Yuna beams upon seeing him, Tidus's mood lifts that much more, too--and he was already grinning to be in her company. Ah, young love.
"Yeah?" he prompts, when she doesn't immediately explain. If she wanted to keep her thoughts to herself, that'd be fine, too, but he *is* interested in what she's thinking and what she has to say. He figures... it's probably force of habit that makes her keep it to herself by default.
The future and the past, though, huh. Tidus's expression turns pensive. He appreciates that Yuna holds back on the matter of her old man, but... in a lot of ways, there's no avoiding the topic. Even if she does precisely that by asking about blitzball instead of a certain blitzball player.
"I don't know," he says honestly. "It'd be great if I could, but..."
He does genuinely love the sport, which has always made it difficult for him when his father was known as the greatest player *of* said sport. As much as he enjoys it, there's always that streak of Jecht's shadow. It's been less of a thing here in Spira, ironically, but then, he doesn't actually belong to a blitzball team here.
It took him ages to feel like he belonged anywhere at all here, really.
But that's in the past. The future... Well, the future has its own issues, too. He sighs a little, remembering what the fayth of Bahamut told him. It always returns to him whether he likes it or not. He looks over at Yuna, the corners of his mouth and eyes pinching as he wonders yet again if he should tell her. How this must be how it felt like for her, every time she didn't tell him.
"It's gotta be tougher for you," he says instead. "No matter what happens, you're gonna be out of a job as a Summoner, and you built your whole life around being one." He scratches the back of his head. "I bet it'll be hard for all the Summoners out there, huh. Sort of like... 'Now what?'" But he crooks a smile anew, fond and focused on her. "Even though the answer to that is 'Anything you want.' Right?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Tidus is not a great liar and Yuna is not an idiot; she is definitely increasingly aware of his dodges about the future. She might even have asked the question for that exact reason, only to get an expected and suspicious result. She gives him a long and level look, her smile fading a little.
'I know you're not telling me something,' is what those eyes say, in blue-green harmony. But Yuna is too gentle to confront him more directly than that; to call him out in words. She lets her gaze be eloquent enough, and then, graciously, she lets him make the dodge, and turn it back on her.
She folds her fingers together absently.
"It isn't really true," she says. "We built our whole deaths around being summoners. It was never... a life, at all. No one in Besaid ever worried about making adult lodgings for me. They knew... it wouldn't be needed. I guess... I should be flattered." That they believed in her path, in the inevitability of her becoming the next High Summoner, as opposed to abandoning the pilgrimage midway. Or maybe they just thought she would die, young as she was. But she thinks too kindly of the villagers to believe that.
She tucks a different shyness into her smile, then. Not about the long shadows of their fathers, but about... herself. She doesn't open up easily, and mostly, to him, and sometimes the other Guardians.
"I think... I want to travel," says the girl on the airship who has been CONTINUOUSLY on the move for a couple of years now, very aware, and self-conscious about, the absurdity of her statement.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
Tidus isn't a great liar and Yuna isn't an idiot, and Tidus knows both of these things. When Yuna's smile diminishes as she gives him that long look, he winces a little. Even so, she doesn't press him on it, and he lets her not press him on it.
Lulu had said it was too hard to say, that day back at Home. As angry and hurt and horrified at his own thoughtlessness as he'd been back then, Tidus fully appreciates that now.
"Oh," he utters, though, as Yuna corrects him on lives vs. deaths of Summoners. "Yeah... Yeah, I guess--it's not normal for me to think like that. Of someone's death being the whole point of their life. Sorry," he adds, because it feels like he should, even though it's absurd on its face.
"Yeah, I guess that means they believed in you, huh." He laughs a little. "I remember a bunch of them yelling at me for running into the Chamber of the Fayth after you. I felt really stupid about it afterwards. But then I guess I kept on doing it, huh." His expression clouds. "...We're both connected to the Fayth."
He doesn't clarify what he means. Part of him half-hopes that Yuna will press him to explain himself this time; part of him hopes she doesn't. Whether she does or not, though, he smiles at her wish. Absurd? Maybe in some ways. But in others:
"That sounds great to me. You know, Zanarkand was a huge city--so huge I never noticed I'd never left it until I was gone. After that, I kept running around trying to find my way home, or trying to help you with your pilgrimage. And then we ended up on Filgaia, and it was like I'd gotten sent to a new world twice, and... Uh, my point is--I think traveling because you want to take in the sights and enjoy the journey hits different from traveling because you're trying to get somewhere or do something. So yeah. That sounds great to me."
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
"Don't apologize," Yuna reassures Tidus. "I'm glad you... aren't normal." And her ordinary smile is a little bit renewed at the thought. How much solace did he bring her in his ignorance? What felt like a cruel joke played upon him, brought real comfort to Yuna and the others. It must have, for her to look at him like that.
When he speaks of the fayth, she gives him a sharper look. Remembering, perhaps, the time on Mt. Gagazet when he touched the extraordinary outcropping of fayth, the ones summoning something she could not see and did not understand, and collapsed.
"I'm glad you did it," she says, in the same vein as before; and not for the first time. And she means it every time, too. As for pressing him, or not pressing him... it does not quite seem like the moment. Or maybe it's not in her nature to press. She knows... he's been lying to her, ever since they left Bahamut's fayth. Maybe she thinks she deserves it, after his long, unknowing pilgrimage. Or maybe she thinks she'd rather let him tell her, in his own time.
Yuna has demanded truth and justice of the likes of Seymour, of Mika, of Yunalesca. Perhaps, with Tidus, she feels that she does not have to demand. She trusts him, even with his deceptions. She trusts him with her whole heart.
"Yes," she reflects, smiling again, all for him, and perhaps a little more than she might have otherwise, to help put him at his ease. "Do you remember... in the lake?" When he promised to take her to Zanarkand, after they defeated Sin, and she promised to believe him. "I can't go to that city... all lit up at night... and watch you play blitzball. But I can... go everywhere else. Even places I have already been. Like... the Moonflow." Where Tidus wanted to return, after Sin, to see the moonlilies blossom. Yuna remembers that. She remembers everything...
"It is different. I think it would be nice... to see everything... without feeling like, I was always saying goodbye, as soon as I said hello."
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
It's weird to be told something like that, 'I'm glad you aren't normal'--but coming from Yuna, it really does sound like a compliment. Tidus ducks his head even as he smiles anew. "Well... In that case, I'm glad, too." Both about not being normal, and how he barged into the Chamber that first time. "It's nice thinking just being around, being me, helped make a difference."
This is their story, after all. His and hers both.
At least he's open with his deceptions. It's obvious he's hiding something, and they both know it's obvious. Tidus isn't sure that's really much better, but it does make him feel a little better about holding back.
It's hard to tell someone something you know will hurt them, he abruptly reflects.
She brings up the lake. How could he ever forget? "Yeah?" he prompts. He smiles back, remembering that conversation about watching the Moonflow at night. "Hey, we could do that right now. We've got an airship and everything," he points out. "We could take the whole gang and have a nighttime picnic... or we could go by ourselves. Just the two of us." He reaches out to take her hand into hers. "It'd be a great date."
He can't imagine how it must feel to live life like that, though--saying goodbye as she was saying hello. He knows it intellectually, but the way it must feel... it's too enormous even for his huge heart.
But he knows he's glad she doesn't have to feel that way anymore.
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna takes Tidus' hand, but lets him be the one to squeeze first. Part of her wants to say 'maybe we should go after.' Part of her wants to say 'maybe we should go tonight.'
But she doesn't say either of those things. She just smiles at him, softly.
When she says something, at last, it's in response to... what he said before.
"It did, you know." She pauses. "Make a difference. I..."
Her hand, in his, suddenly feels uncomfortable. Apologetic.
"I've never apologized to you," she says at last. "For... Jecht."
She does not keep him in suspense, adding as hurriedly as her mind can form the words: "He is Sin, but it's because of... my father."
It's extremely rare for Yuna to criticize Braska, but she's on the verge of it. She hesitates, swaying slightly, then takes the plunge.
"He could have said no. He could have said... no more. Never again."
Like they did.
"I'm sorry... that he didn't," she concludes. "And I think that I could... because of you. Maybe... instead of saying sorry, for what my father, did to your father. Maybe I should just say thank you. For what... you did to me."
Her other hand, her free hand, carefully rises to touch Tidus on the shoulder. And she does not look down, demurely, or away to the airship's view, shyly.
She looks at him. And she loves him. Very much.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
For all the awkwardness of what's unspoken between them, the silence they share is still comfortable. Tidus leans in a little closer as they clasp hands, simply enjoying Yuna's presence, her smile, the way the wind blows through her hair and rattles her prayer beads. He soaks in the moment--and then she speaks up. To apologize.
"My old man?" he utters, as if there's any other Jecht she could mean. He thinks at first she means for singing his praises when they were first learning about each other, but no, it's not that. His lips thin for a moment; then he shakes his head.
"Maybe he could've. But he was just trying to do what he believed was right. And it's not like he strong-armed my old man into it. You saw same as I did back in that old dome--Jecht volunteered. They didn't know it was all a lie. It's not... something you need to apologize for."
There are lots of things Yuna doesn't need to apologize for, in Tidus's opinion. But that won't stop her from apologizing anyway. So when she offers that maybe she ought to thank him instead, Tidus smiles anew. "I like that a lot better," he says. "So let me thank you, too, for what *you* did for *me*. Because you were around, I wasn't alone."
She touches him, and he leans into her touch. Because he loves her, too.
"For what it's worth... I don't think my old man holds it against yours," he adds, the thought abruptly occurring to him. "I've come into contact with him a few times now, and... it's not *great*, being Sin. But I never got the sense that he was angry at anyone for it. I mean, I can't know for sure... It's just the feeling I've gotten. But still."
Anima
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna knows Tidus thinks she has nothing to apologize for and she loves him for that too. He is the only person in the world to have never pressured her to be anyone, anything but herself. Even Rikku, who she adores, wanted her to be someone she wasn't: 'not a summoner.' But Tidus accepted her as she was. From the beginning... to the end.
She is concerned, when she's made him uncomfortable; and relieved, when he loves her anyway.
And she's thoughtful -- she never really stops thinking, not for a moment, not even at the best and closest of times -- at what he says, after.
She lets go of his shoulder, but not his hand; she strokes the back of it with her thumb.
"You could ask him," she suggests-- then, shakes her head. Her hair brushes her shoulders softly, just at the very tips, and her earring, all the way to Besaid and back, tinkles. "Don't, though. It's not that important. Not compared to... whatever you need to say to him."
After a moment, she elaborates, her beliefs implicit but not yet explained: "If Sin is Jecht enough to still love the Hymn of the Fayth... then he may be Jecht enough... to talk to you. You should... think about what to talk about. When the time comes. If you... want to, I mean. No one would blame you... if you didn't."
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
"Huh?" he utters.
He could ask him.
The thought had never occurred to him before, that he could ask his old man things. There's sure a lot of things he'd like to say to him, and Yuna immediately backpedals in acknowledgement of that. But...
If he's Jecht enough to still love the Hymn of the Fayth... huh. Tidus stares out into the sky for a moment to ruminate. Even the feel of her thumb brushing along the back of his hand, soothing as it is, isn't enough to distract him from the memory: he remembers keenly that time against Althena's Guard, when they were battling across those boats over Leviathan's Fayth, and as it sang, Sin just... showed up to listen. Even though there'd been fighting just before that. It'd really struck him at the time. Amazing how they didn't put together that the Hymn might slow Sin down until so much later... but they did find their answer eventually.
"No, you're right," he says quietly. "I don't know what I'd say to him, or if I'd be able to say it. But I *should* think about what I'd say. If it happens, I probably won't have more than a moment, so I better be prepared to shoot my shot."
He pauses in consideration. "You know," he adds, "I've seen Auron talk to Sin before. If anyone knows how my old man feels about yours, I bet he could give you a pretty good idea." Then, wryly, he adds, "Assuming you can get him to talk. Actually, never mind, just asking Sin directly *would* be easier."
He's half-joking. But that means he's also half-serious.
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna nods, seriously. It is not difficult to imagine that she's given some real thought to what she'd say to Braska, given half a chance. The real Braska, not the one on the Farplane, the one from her own memories. "Yes," she says simply. He should take some time. While there is still time.
She contemplates asking Auron, then shakes her head.
"I think... maybe I could," she realizes. "And that's why... I shouldn't." She and Auron, they've gotten close over the course of the journey, though often in a quiet and understated way. They, perhaps, represent something different to one another, than Tidus and Auron do. Not better or worse. Just not the same.
Then again, though she probably didn't intend the double meaning, she could have been speaking about Tidus just now, too. She knows her dearest loves, her closest family, her Guardians, would keep nothing from her if she asks. That's why... she has a responsibility not to.
"But I meant what I said," she urges, firmly and kindly. "That it isn't really that important. Not important to bother anyone about. They made their decision together, as you said. And I think... Jecht must want to be freed, from Yu Yevon. And I know... my father would want him to be freed, too. More than anything in this world, or any other. And that they would probably... want us to do it. Us in particular. Because of who we are. And that's enough for me."
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
And there's so little time left.
"Yeah? Yeah. I get that," Tidus admits. "You get the sense sometimes like even asking him about that kind of stuff is prodding at old wounds. And we already saw enough of his old wounds back in the dome." Both emotional and physical (thanks, Yunalesca).
On top of that, it's one thing if he's asking. Auron is used to putting up with his petulance and stonewalling him as he saw fit. But if it were Yuna asking... it'd probably be harder. Maybe even a burden. And as they've both acknowledged, Jecht and Braska made their decision together. Asking about it would really only confirm what they already know.
"Yeah. I think so, too," Tidus says quietly. "He was a loud-mouthed, womanizing, arrogant jerk, but because of all that, he was really proud. I think--no, I *know* he hates being Yu Yevon's armor. If Sin is Obsession, then Jecht... must be obsessed with finding a way to put an end to the cycle."
And as Yuna says, that's why they want them--why he wants *him*--to do it. Thinking about it... makes Tidus start to choke up.
He doesn't try to hold back his tears. He knows Yuna won't judge him for them. But it does make him hate Jecht a little more, irrationally. "Stupid old man," he mumbles, swiping at his face with his free arm. "You're right, though. You're right." He looks back at her, cheeks stained. "That's... enough for me, too. For now."