2023-04-10: Unspoken
- Log: Unspoken
- Cast: Tidus, Yuna
- Where: Sin
- Date: April 10, 2023
- Summary: Immediately before facing Jecht and Yu Yevon, Tidus and Yuna have their last conversation. They pointedly do not spend it talking about what they both know is about to happen.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
Only a single stairwell remains between Tidus and the core of Sin. He's not sure what he'll see there. He knows thanks to Elly that Jecht isn't just in there, but he really does have a grasp of himself--enough of one to hold a solid conversation. But knowing that doesn't really make it easier. He and Yuna had talked about this a while ago, but mulling it over hasn't really made coming up with what he'd say to his old man any easier.
There are other things he should talk about that are just as difficult to think of how to address. He'll have to say them sooner or later, but... He scratches his head as he stares up the stairs. Leon, Lily, and Citan have left by now; Paine still needs a little time to recover, as far as he knows, but it won't be much longer now.
"I should... talk to Yuna," he mumbles to himself. "At the very least, about what Jecht said..."
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna's not sneaky like Rikku, but she does have an uncanny ability to pop up at times like this. Even before she was Tidus' girlfriend, she had the knack, and now it's a dozen times worse. Or better, depending on how ones feels about the marriage of empathy and intuition in one's girlfriend, as fully and lovingly applied in her boyfriend's direction.
Pop!
She leans in from just out of frame, her earring swinging like a pendulum, somehow ahead of her instead of lagging behind. Her palms cradle one another at waist-height. She is surprisingly relaxed for someone who has just been through many ordeals. Healing Paine probably helped. Yuna is always in a better mood after a healing. Each time, a reminder of all the good things in the world, and the way they can make things just a little better, one person at a time.
She smiles at him -- not the Merriest, but still, with gentle good cheer.
"What did Jecht say?" she asks guilelessly. Maybe she thinks Tidus is thinking about his childhood right now, in the context of the inevitable conversation ahead. Maybe she's just... beyond surprise, at this point, after everything that's happened. Or maybe she's just prompting him, trying to help.
If she wasn't being helpful, after all, she might have asked, 'at the very least?' instead...
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
Maybe not as sneaky as Rikku, but combined with a knack towards silent footfalls and a boyfriend who's currently lost in his own thoughts, and when Yuna leans in and asks her question, Tidus flails and leaps back a step instinctively.
"WAUGH!" he yelps. A hammering of heartbeats later, and he breaths out a heavy breath. "Geez! Yuna, you startled me!" And then he laughs, because it's pretty funny in retrospect. It's his own fault for letting his guard down in the last place anyone should let their guard down at.
"Good timing, actually. I was just thinking about you," he says--which obviously she knows already, given her question. Whatever her intent is here, he trusts her. He looks back up the stairs.
"...So, I've been meaning to bring this up with you," he continues. "You know how we were talking recently about... what we'd ask Jecht? Well... recently, Elly found out there's something special about her Gear that lets her talk to ancient technologies, and apparently Sin counts."
A beat. He turns to meet her eyes, his normally sunny expression grave. "In short, she was able to talk to him a little. Just through text, but still. And she passed on a couple of questions for me... things you wanted to ask, too."
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna's eyes, which were bright with curiosity, round more fully. They're like the two worlds, if they were Blue Star and Green Star.
"That's... amazing," she says, a little breathlessly, as to the simple fact of Elly conducting such a conversation at all.
But she recognizes his gravity, and matches it in haste, by taking one deep breath, then another.
"That was... kind of you," Yuna recognizes aloud. There are so many things he could have said and asked his father at the time, but he thought of her... her hands unclasp, and one floats up to rest on her heart, touched. The other, in short order, reaches for one of Tidus'.
"What did Jecht say?" she repeats, and the four words might as well not be in the same language at all, so different are they the second time.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
"Hey, you said it yourself, right? We're not gonna have time to ask a lot of questions. And the stuff I wanna say, I'd rather say it to his face," Tidus reassures her, a smile crooking onto his lips. She reaches out to him, and he accepts her hand, taking a step closer. "And you deserve to know, too. So... it's no big deal. Really."
He doesn't want her to think that she owes him anything, after all. This is important to her too. Like she said way back--this is his story, but it's her story, too. She really does deserve to know.
"So the first question I had her ask was about how he felt about your dad turning him into the Final Aeon. I had another question, something me and Fei were wondering about, and that was about if--the person who turns into Sin, if they're able to hold out for a while before fully becoming Sin, and if that's at least part of what the Calm is."
He pauses. Technically only the first question was something he and Yuna discussed, but he's sure Yuna would want to hear the second, too. But... "Basically, the Calm is just what we already knew it was--Sin reforming after the Final Aeon kills it. He confirmed that what we're planning on doing--taking out Sin and then Yu Yevon--should..." 'do the trick,' he almost says, except that's exactly how his old man put it. "...should do the job," he concludes instead. "Good to get confirmation, right?"
A slight pause. He doesn't need to hesitate to talk about this, really, since it's good news for Yuna. But Jecht said some things in both questions that were pretty personal to him, even if it wasn't *about* him. "The other part--he was okay at first with becoming the Final Aeon. I mean, you know about that already. We both saw it," he says quietly. "He *was*--I guess *is* mad about becoming Sin. But he didn't blame Braska for it or anything. He knew Braska didn't know about that part."
He steps closer still, turning his hand to slip his fingers between hers. "So... you don't need to feel guilty for your old man anymore, Yuna."
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna bows her head gratefully. It isn't a matter of owe. It's just a matter of love. And she listens, as he tells her things they've only suspected. Mystery after mystery, dispelled.
"I'm glad it... will work," she murmurs, naturally interested in that most of all. "If it didn't, it would just be... too sad."
Considering the price. Which, no matter how much she reassures herself and others, still feels like a sacrifice, though it's a willing, even eager, farewell on the part of the eon-exhausted fayth.
Her fingers twitch between Tidus', then curve inwards, closing their grasp more tightly.
"I'm glad," she says simply. "Thank you. And... it's one more thing to thank him for, too. Though I doubt I'll get the chance."
She glances away from him, and towards the ceiling, gaze softening as though looking at distant stars instead of the many tangled cords and wires of an inexplicably modern-ancient complex.
"Because he fought Yu Yevon for so long, all by himself... Jecht gave me a childhood." Some would immediately point out that it wasn't much of one, but Yuna doesn't go there at all. She's genuinely glad of what she's had. "If he'd come back sooner... I would have just... left sooner. And maybe... we wouldn't have found one another at all."
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
It might not have been much of a childhood, but Tidus has seen the results of Sin's attacks with his own eyes, several times over. It's more of a childhood than she would've had with Sin free to rampage wherever it wanted. At one point, he might've been irritated to hear her speak well of his old man; now... now, he's grateful that he managed to do right by her.
Her and Braska both, really. Maybe even Auron.
"Me too, honestly. It's good knowing we're on the right track and made the right choices," he replies, smiling softly. "There's a big difference between faith and fact. But I guess I don't need to tell you that, huh. So hey--you're welcome, Yuna."
He follows her gaze up towards the ceiling, such as it may be called inside a creature--a construct?--such as Sin. It would be a lot better if they could be looking at the stars... or better yet, the pyreflies over the Moonflow... or better still, the stars winking out as dawn rises over Zanarkand... but he's happy being anywhere with her.
"I dunno. If he'd come back sooner, I think... he would've come for me sooner. And Auron was there in Zanarkand, watching out for me. I think he would've done his best to make sure we met up." He looks back at Yuna. "But you're still right. There's no guarantee it would've gone exactly the same way. Things worked out... just the way they should've, I think. Between Rikku and Wakka and you and everyone, everyone's been so good to me ever since I showed up in Spira. It's been rough, and sometimes it's been lonely, but... if it had to end up this way--I'm glad I ended up with you."
And that's why he hesitates. Because this isn't the only thing he should tell her, and he knows it.
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Yuna doesn't hesitate.
She leans in, and her cheekbone brushes his. Then their noses slide along one another's. And finally their lips meet, still a rare and precious enough event to have a frission of the miraculous, every single time.
Afterwards...
"I'm glad, too."
It'd be easy to interpret Tidus' words as those of a man on his deathbed. A man winding things down and wrapping things up. The gratitude of the impending grave. Certainly impending death, and how it changes you, is something Yuna is even more familiar with than the distinction between faith and fact. She's been a heretic for a year. But she's been on the path of the summoner for almost her whole life.
She doesn't want to live like she -- or he -- is about to die, ever again.
There's always another way.
Tidus is the one who taught her to believe in that.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
Being with Yuna--touching Yuna--kissing Yuna--it's always wonderful, every single time. But this time, it feels like forgiveness. The thing that he hasn't told her, the thing that he was so upset about when it was him who didn't know... it feels like she already knows, and she's forgiven him for not saying it.
Because he doesn't want to say it, either. There's a sliver of hope that it won't turn out that way; after all, didn't Bahamut's Fayth himself say he was more than a dream now?
And so their lips brush together, and press, and eventually part, and for a moment he's too breathless to do anything but smile at her, the look in his blue eyes bittersweet.
There's always another way, but is there time to find it, here on the last steps to the final battle?
"Listen, Yuna," he whispers. "There's something I should tell you... but I know it's going to hurt you, so I don't want to say it. Is it... okay with you, if I leave it unsaid a little longer?"
<Pose Tracker> Yuna has posed.
Maybe she does; and maybe she did. Yuna so often keeps her own counsel. Especially about the most important things.
And what could be more important than this?
Time and time again she has declined the opportunity to push. To pester, after an early attempt to ask the question made it clear that he was willing to lie -- badly -- to try to cover it up. Since then, she has adopted patience as her byword... and dread as her companion.
This whisper demands much of the former, and instills ever more of the latter.
But she'd do anything for the boy who, like a cruel reflection, is now trying to face his end with a smile. Maybe it's divine punishment for what she put him through. Or maybe it's just plain bad luck for both of them.
"Yes," Yuna says simply. What else is she going to say, here at the base of the steps? Screaming and shouting won't change anything. It didn't for her, when he tried. That wasn't what made the difference. It just made everything... harder.
And everything is just so hard already.
She won't make it worse.
She gestures up the stairs with her free hand, though the hand he's taken is his to keep until the very end.
"Are you ready?"
A question that could mean many things, or only the simplest: his father is waiting for him at the top. And talking to him in person will be entirely different from sending a message through someone else.
<Pose Tracker> Tidus has posed.
It's cruel of him to ask this of her, but Tidus honestly doesn't know if telling her the truth would be any kinder. There's never been a good time, and when she did hint towards it before, he couldn't come up with a good way to say it, and so he covered it up instead.
If only there were more time--but if there *were* more time, would he actually say it, or would he put it off that much longer?
This is the best he can do. And sure enough, just as her kiss tasted like forgiveness, she expresses it again with her 'yes.' He relaxes a little, smiling a little wider and a little more rueful.
He could say, 'I'm sorry.'
Instead, he says, "Thank you."
And: "I love you."
She gestures up the stairs, and he follows the motion with his gaze. His hand remains in hers, for just as she gives of herself freely to him, he wants to stay by her side to the very end.
"As ready as I'll ever be," he says with that wry humor that has always defined him. "Let's go, Yuna. All of us, together."