2024-01-07: What In Spira Do You Want
- Cutscene: What In Spira Do You Want
- Cast: Timu Guado
- Where: Spira
- Date: A vaguely defined stretch of time before the Ten Wise Men attacked Kattelox.
- Summary: A young Guado woman is confronted with a question of which she finds there is only one possible answer.
On the Thunder Plains, five Guado were tasked for preparing a Sending for a Fiend of almost incomparable strength. This included Gon Guado, one of the most capable of those who remained after the end of Seymour's nihilistic ambitions, who led the collective group in seizing those pyreflies before they could reform anew on the storm-battered surface.
Just as his youngest daughter did when unmaking his final gambit to keep the allies of the one who would bring the Eternal Calm.
Pani Guado, though of young age, demonstrated an aptitude above and beyond what was already uniquely a Guado birthright by having weaved the constituent pyreflies of an otherwise endlessly regenerating Fiend into a cluster of comparatively harmless icy Bombs.
She numbered among them. Whether she grasped the emotional depth of an Unsent creature who was once confined to the underground holding chambers for over a thousand years, or was insulated by the collective undying sentiments that composed the Fiend through sheer youth didn't matter. In the time that followed her feat on Mt. Gagazet, she has only improved leaps and bounds.
As the flood of pyreflies from a recently defeated Fiend escaped, she grasped more than her share of the mass with purpose. Her childhood dream of being a Summoner had found a healthy channel though greater mastery of manipulation of the flow and shaping of pyreflies. Whatever key sentiments served as the glue of whom a particularly insistent squirrel-like individual would say was named Varuna, they were barred from reuniting by force of will.
To the outside viewer, Pani was surrounded by chaotic clouds of pyreflies streaming in undecipherable criss-cross patterns indistinguishable from a free-form flow. There were more minute streams than she had fingers on her hands that she followed, spiraling and spinning them as their designated Sender began the ritual to deliver them unto the Farplane.
Even this was not enough. 'They're not holding,' she struggled.
Opposite her among the hand-picked Guado to assist in performing the critical Sending, was her older sister Timu. Unlike her father and her younger sibling, she never demonstrated much aptitude nor interest in the formation of Fiends. Such always seemed like a contradiction, even before the cultural hubris that Jyascal helped cultivate would have collapsed upon them during Yuna's pigrimage. Guado were stewards of the Farplane, and yet the Guado Guardians would conjure Fiends to serve their whim.
They slipped through Timu's grasp, conjoining and whirling about one another with increasingly louder wailing as the components began to inch towards more coherent sentiments that the pyreflies served as vessels for. She panicked, knowing time and time again the signs of a Fiend's imminent emergence, as she waved her hands like she were swatting at them.
Their father, Gon, knew who was faltering. He called to her, insisted. The urgency of the situation brought out the strict glare that characterized him, to the remnant of a once harsher man. 'Like you've been taught,' he addressed. This escalated to the demand that she must hold them, anger and frustration before the enormity of the task.
The ceaseless rain and deafening thunder of the Thunder Plains only multiplied the stress. Their Sender among them paused the once as he saw Timu fall to her knees, only to be directed anew with urgency to begin the ritual.
With every passing moment, the swarm of pyreflies threatened to break loose of all their grasp, rejoin and remake the Fiend that was disincorporated in which to allow this opportunity. Only when they started the familiar intertwining spiral towards Guadosalam did the gathered allow themselves to stop.
The Sender ran to her side. What he had to say, Timu wasn't listening. It wasn't unkind, but she couldn't hear over her own racing mind. That might have been true for most everyone there.
Timu felt all eyes upon her that day, and the days that followed.
---
"Timu." The aged voice of her mother, Beh, intruded through the listless void of distress in Timu's bedroom. She had the bearing of a household matriarch by Guado stereotypes, a narrow dress of indigo make with a seafoam green shawl around her shoulders. Her green hair, once vibrant in youth, had long started to give way to gray hairs at a younger age than her peers - a common trait for those Guado whose hair landed on that part of the color spectrum.
It had been three days.
"Mother." Timu, sitting upon her bed of what Spira would have considered lavish, sat still with the folded-up light green robes of a Guado attendant upon her lap. She stared at it, downcast, as the illumination of Spheres built with glass of exotic hues reminded her of the time of day. The time of day being she should have been out in Guadosalam over an hour ago.
Said exotic hues were extracted from Hypello-made dyes and techniques, once jealously guarded were it not for the immense cultural influence Jyascal helped muster against a continent gripped by the specter of death. Various other items about the space were beneficiaries of the Guado's exploitation of grief and faith.
Most of her people struggled to look at them with the same admiration they used to, having faced the consequences of their actions.
"You're late, you know." Beh spoke matter-of-factly as she crossed her hands in front of herself. "Your father lives here too. You won't be able to hide from him here."
"I'm not hiding from him." Timu responded. It felt like a lifetime ago when both Pani and herself braved ghastly sights and Mt. Gagazet in order to oppose her father and Seymour. She remembered joining hands with her sister when they watched the dawn of the Eternal Calm.
It once again felt like a different lifetime.
"Then what are you doing?"
Timu didn't answer.
"You know as well as anyone what must follow from the days before the Eternal Calm." Beh approached, parting her hands. "Our people have a great debt to pay."
A debt that Timu and Pani themselves, least of all, are to shoulder by any measure. Gon and Beh, their parents, should know that most of anyone.
"I was listless as a young girl at your age," Beh said as she stood before Timu. It was not common for their people to stand at level with the next generation, and even then, Beh maintained her present height compared to her seated daughter in subtle intimidation despite her kind words.
"We Guado are fortunate to have what place we do on Spira," began the spiel they've all known for generations that Jyascal exploited for greater influence.
"...for as long as Spira lets us."
This half was new. In a land where their final resting place was known and certain, the Guado quietly transitioned to a more liminal view of their lot. Gone were the pursuit of lavish, decadent material and luxury afforded by their proximity to the Farplane.
It was here, that Beh made the affectionate gesture the Guado practiced with caution as she laid her right hand upon Timu's head.
"You and your sister are a part of our future. Your father wants you to be able to use your gifts to the fullest."
She withdrew that hand, as Timu stared silent at her uniform.
"Do not squander them," she said, as she stepped back. "You and your sister, of everyone..."
Beh didn't complete the sentence. It was not the first time she began a statement like that, and it was not the first time her eldest daughter failed to give it a response that satisfied the both of them.
as she left her daughter to herself. Guadosalam was starting to lease out some of its land in order to make ends meet, and she herself risked being late to meet with some prospective buyers.
---
Luca remained a distraction from all of this, for blessed hours at a time.
Every other week, Timu and a number of Guado traveled together for safety. It was going to be some time before the next season, but the off-season was always a time of excitement and hope. Without Sin threatening to bear down upon them, Blitzball was ready to flourish and endure as Spira's pastime.
"They're scouting today," Won Guado, a hopeful, reminded another next to them. "I can't believe we forgot about that."
"Good thing we won," Yil Guado, another, regarded Won as they sat down on a bench and bit into a salted seaweed mass on a stick.
Timu sat down nearby with her own. Both her parents tried to get her to give up the habit to no avail. It was junk food fit for smaller children, but it felt like a shared thing between her and her Blitzball peers. Usually, once they got to Luca, most of the stares and unkind words went away. All were equal in Blitzball.
The subtleties that did bleed through often boiled down to whether someone had a ball at the time, and how willing they were to make the most of that interaction.
She played opposite of the other two Guado. Right-side Defender, as was her comfort zone. For all the malaise at home, Blitzball was a reprieve. This was true of almost anyone of Spira, both before and after the Eternal Calm.
She caught more possible goal shots than their actual goalkeeper. She couldn't begrudge them that, as they were a newer player to the game. It wasn't enough to win the game on her end, on a 2-4 loss that had the potential to be 2-7 had she not been in place.
It was her best game in months, from that perspective.
"May I have your attention!" Called out a human announcer just as Timu started to take a bite of her seaweed. He had her attention. Everyone did. Giving him a name, of which he had one, felt like a backseat to what he represented to any Blitzball hopefuls.
"The representatives from every major team in Spira has spoken! I'm proud to announce as follows..."
He ran down the list. Many of those names were familiar to Timu, from months of play. She flinched at the mention of a specific scouted talent for the Ronso Fangs, the lasting reflex of a time some months ago in which she got struck when she intercepted a pass.
The new talent for the Psyches were loud and joyous, and heedless to whatever the greater society of Spira considered polite. Being aware of what the Guado had a hand in between both the Al Bhed and the Ronso - albeit at lesser scale for the latter - she tried her best to keep composure in guessing their feelings about playing Blitzball alongside them.
"And finally, today, for the Guado Glories..."
"Here's our time," Yil spoke up.
One of the old guard had apparently escaped from Spira entirely, never to be seen again - in so much that they did not appear in the Farplane. Timu wondered if it would be her time, even as the above haunted her from the time she was escorted by other Glories hopefuls in search of them. One of the Otherworlders confirmed someone of that description did escape to the Otherworld(s) beyond Spira.
There was hope in her posture as she leaned forward. She did want to go professional. After today's game, how could they not have seen her play? It felt like it stood to be an escape.
"Yil Guado!" The announcer spoke the name. It was Guado custom to celebrate with grace and poise, rather than noise and needless movement. Yil let that to the way side as they raised both their arms.
There were two names for every other team. Timu's heart raced. A youthful hope--
"...and Won Guado!"
Won observed decorum admirably, as they exhaled loudly. "We're in," they said to Yil.
No other names were spoken, as Timu looked to her peers. She was happy for them, they were good players, and yet...
It felt like another unfulfilled yearning.
"Hey. Psst." A human signaled to Timu, a shorter, older fellow. "Guado."
Being addressed like that was already a turn-off, but he had the signs of wealth and status she'd seen would-be representatives of free agents wear. She lifted her gaze.
"Didn't get signed on, huh. Real shame, that. I know how hard things are for you," he grinned a sleazy smile, "nobody buying your jewelry, or your cuisine. Bad times, since that whole thing with Seymour, yeah? Like you've all been cut off from everything. Well, I got somethin' only you can do."
"What?" She never should have asked, she told herself as she spoke.
"All of you are good at makin' Fiends, right? Workin' on my own arena, y'know, all the excitement of fightin', but closer to Luca. All the blood, sweat, tears. We can't let that go to waste because of the Eternal Calm--"
"Is that all we are to you?" Timu raised her voice.
"What else is there?" They laughed. "For y--"
A great cry of pain resounded through the entire stadium as a blitzball bounced off the man's face. Blood spilled from a broken nose as Timu stood up, realized what she did... and chased off with her Blitzball, running with the gift of the Guado's superior leg strides. No one other than a Guado could match her as she took off.
---
A late afternoon at the Moonflow conveyed the emptiness that Timu felt. Won did their best to console her, having spoken at length how they were worried every time the blitzball ended up on the left side of the field from their perspective.
She held onto her own blitzball, signed by Won and Yil. It was something of a tradition that those scouted to play professionally would write their names on the personal blitzballs of those who remained hopeful to make the jump another season, across all Spira's cultures. The only difference was that typically the Guado kept it among themselves. As of recent times, this feeling of isolation felt all the greater.
It has just been autographed with a small blood spatter of someone else, besides, and she hadn't thought to wash it. She'd risk losing Won's and Yil's sentiments.
She broke off on her own from the other Guado traveling back from Luca to sit at the river and look upon the golden sunset against the Moonflow. Small numbers of pyreflies flit free, their prismatic lights hardly enough to cast against the gloom of the overcast sky.
The Shoopuf lines were slower today than usual, though the Hypello didn't say why, and the one they spoke too seemed distressed to the point they didn't want to have to be where they were. All the better time to have digested her feelings by herself, she surmised.
"Timu," a familiar young man's voice said, to the faint tapping of a staff against the base of a nearby tree for exclamation where the voice didn't carry such connotation. "Where's your staff?"
"Goro." Timu looked up. She shook her head. "I didn't bring it."
"I thought you were training as an attendant and physician?" He approached, but then knelt. Goro was around her age, if a few months younger - something he was often teased about, between them. His reddish-purple hair was kept short and neat in the way Guado would consider it such, owing to the unique texture and qualities of it. Timu considered him easy on the eyes.
The feeling was mutual.
Both their parents had marriages arranged in their time. Candidates for the both of them were in consideration before the Guado numbers dwindled, and the great cultural shame the people of Guadosalam bore for supporting Seymour's efforts had given pause to any efforts to consider other suitable matches.
They weren't certain at the time what to call it when they started spending more time together of their own volition.
He was dressed in the garb of a dedicated Sender, owing to having been one of the younger inducted into the art before the Eternal Calm brought much of it to an end. He still bore the ornate multicolored sash around his waistline as signal and indicator that a Summoner wore prior to the Eternal Calm, and bore an appropriately-sized staff for casting the destructive aspects of Lightning and Water.
She wanted to be happier to see him.
"Fiends are still around," Goro said, with a weight in his voice. "I just had to see to the Sending of a Shoopuf who fell to them."
That explained the delay, and the sole present Hypello's distress. A Shoopuf's passing was always an event for the Hypello people, moreso when it happened to violent ends. They were resilient and long-lived, but even then...
"I'm sorry." Timu murmured.
"I'm not angry with you about the Thunder Plains," Goro spoke, "it's just--"
"Do I really have a place here?" Timu stood up. Her voice became hoarse. The previous generation were firm on practices of stoicism and keeping hold of one's emotions. It's a practice that served well in the manipulating of pyreflies that had the capacity to cluster and form into Fiends, perhaps, to the exclusion of all else.
Timu was not a member of that previous generation. Neither of the two were, standing here.
"But... but, you do," Goro stammered in his attempt to grasp it. "We all do." He reached out with his right hand, raising it to try and lock fingers with hers in the affectionate gesture they would see their own parents engage upon when it was just the two of them alone.
"You don't... you don't understand," Timu spoke, having not taken the hand, "is this all we are?" She looked out to the pyreflies wailing along quietly as they take their leave of the late afternoon waters of the Moonflow, ahead of the brilliant colors that fill the body of water and skies around it at night.
"We're bound to the Farplane," Goro said, a deeply-ingrained line across his years of life, "no matter what happens to Spira." The only constant that might have remained in their lives.
Once, a trait they used to gain so much influence and wealth. Now, the only crumb they have left.
"Goro," Timu murmured in a low voice, "that's... that's not the Spira Pani and I fought for. We're more than just the pyreflies around us... aren't we?"
Goro fell silent as he stepped closer to the edge of the Moonflow, and watched the small handful of pyreflies leave behind a silent, dark body of water behind it bereft of the glamorous night that would soon come.
Goro started to have second thoughts about asking the two of them to just sit together and enjoy the Moonflow tonight.
"What in Spira do you want, then?" Goro asked, innocuously.
What in Spira would she want?
---
Another day passed in Guadosalam.
Gon Guado stood among the small number of Guado whom had the gift of what was once referred to as the power of prayer magic. His days after retiring from the more physically demanding expectations of a Guado Guardian were not restful. The Guado people made many mistakes, and day after day it felt there was less time to impart what he must.
Dressed in the traditional robes of those who would instruct in this art, a stark white with red trim, Gon tapped his staff along the wood-hewn grounds of Guadosalam. The structure he once used for lecture purposes had since been sold off, as it felt the Guado themselves were less and less entitled to their ancestral home.
Whether it was a looming feeling of dread for the hostility of a number of visitors, or a sense of repentence, he couldn't say.
What he could say is that his eldest daughter once again failed to show. He breathed a deep sigh as he sized up those in attendance, clad in their pale green robes indicative of their future stations.
He imagined he'd speak to her more firmly that night, following what he had heard from Luca.
Beyond the confines of the new open area of instruction, he overheard one of the Guado Guardians speak to Goro about something they found.
Gon looked up, took one step forward... and thought better of it. He wasn't going to bother a Sender or the Guado Guardians over these matters now. He was far too old, he surmised, as he looked back to his pupils.
Goro looked over his shoulder just as Gon seemed intent to face back to his present future, as he held a parchment. He silently gave thanks to the ones who brought it to his attention, and took off towards a local park to read in relative solitude.
He found that Pani had been waiting for him there, expectantly, and demanding. As if she assumed Timu was there with him 'again,' at which point...
He shared what he was given.
---
Dear Goro,
You asked me what in Spira I could want, and I thought about it.
Due to Sin, we never could imagine anyone or anything outside of Spira.
When the Otherworlders came, it felt like a strange dream. Things we used to know as true, no longer were.
They all came from somewhere else. Somewhere Sin couldn't stop them from coming.
My father did his best to drive them away, in fear of what they could have taken from us.
It feels more like Yevon - with all of the lies so many used to deceive and steal - was afraid of what they were going to give us.
Even through Althena's Crusades, my sister and I held fast to wanting to see what was going on with our own eyes.
We saw monsters, like the Red Priestess, who tried to burn down Bevelle under false promises.
I'll never forget the day I tried to save those burned and dying with Cure spells not strong enough to save them.
But we met, and were supported by, kinder people not bound by traditions or blood.
Together, with Lady Yuna and her Guardians, they brought us a Spira no longer under siege by Sin.
The Eternal Calm couldn't have happened without the Otherworlders. They helped give us a chance.
I've watched as our own people struggle to keep this miracle everyone fought for.
It's because of them that we were able to survive Seymour, and live to be something more.
It hurts, to see us as being little more than our ties to the Farplane.
Maybe some of this was deserved, for what the Guado did under Seymour. Our people were unkind even before his rule.
But you asked me, what in Spira I could want.
I've decied it doesn't exist in Spira. So, I'm going to leave for the Otherworld beyond it.
Though the Al Bhed are furious with us, some friends I've made - friends the Otherworlders trust - are willing to help see us to the other side together.
Both you and my sister, Pani, deserve to find a place for ourselves free of all this.
I don't want my life to be tied to or defined by something only defined by pain and sadness, and neither should you.
I'll be waiting. We can make a new life together. I know I'm not the first Guado to leave, and we won't be the last.
Signed, Timu
Please take Pani with you when you come.
---
"We can't wait any longer," shouted an Al Bhed, an older fellow. Gruff, but with a good grasp of the common vernacular. He cottoned to this because he was tired of how his lisp got him endless mockery in his own native tongue, but even then, he was a man of a mildly grumpy resting disposition.
"We're gonna go reeeeeaaaally far out! Can't miss the boooooaaaat," yells a younger woman in scolding.
Timu, dressed in a mismatching set of travel clothes, holds together her traveling provisions. A stolen mechanical claw gauntlet from her father's stash. A blitzball. A mirror she was given by one of her Otherworlder friends when they managed to take their leave of Spira. She hadn't ever done this, to this degree.
In her hands directly was a staff wrought by a Fire Seraph specifically for her as a gift. It had a good heft and weight that respected the size of her hands for a grip, with enough weight that it made for an effective weapon against Fiends, if only just so. The Guado were not known for physical might.
None of them alone would have given her confidence in which to travel by her lonesome. It wasn't that big of an ask at the time, she thought, despite the enormity of the idea of Guado being on Bikanel Island after the attack on Home led by her father. Pani would have smoothed everything out. Goro deserved a better life than what was being laid out for all of them now.
"Now or never," the gruff man stood over the tent set up outside the excavated ruins that bore an Elw Teleporter to the Otherworld. "If it's 'never,' you walk back out the desert on your own."
Not a peep, nothing, from beyond. Timu's eyes hardly focused on the burlier Al Bhed, who knelt down to meet her eyes.
"Don't be afraid. We made good friends over there," he said. "Took me time to want to see myself. We're going even further now. Exciting."
"Too many bad memories." He doesn't elaborate. They both know what those bad memories are. "Come. New ones, then."
Timu regarded the Al Bhed trying to reach out to her with her lowering gaze. As he was masked, she couldn't see his smile - or at least, his honest attempt at one, from beyond the equipment meant for more hazardous environs.
"You play Blitzball? The water in Sylvaland is fun. Sylvaland isn't coming here."
"Goooooiiiiiiiiiing---!" The younger woman beyond them calls.
Timu started to rise.
"I'm going."
"Yes! All of us are going. Follow close. Sometimes, we get through without all the lights going on."
Timu took one last look to Spira above and around her, from the sand-blasted island of exile that the Al Bhed hid at in a culture that hated and despised them.
Pani and Goro never came, but she hoped they'd follow.