It was a strange experience for all of them. The villagers had only been told of one child, not two. For Yuna, it took them time to learn of her mixed heritage and they treated her no different from any other child.
For Seymour, the people weren’t sure what to do with him at first, even though Auron told them that Braska asked that the boy be treated just as kindly as Yuna. Kindness was not the issue. Most people had never seen any race beyond what washed up on their tiny island and were fascinated by him and the unusual features he bore thanks to his father. Raising him was the problem. He resented the attention they poured on him and he was afraid of each and every one of them, constantly hiding while curled into a ball. He wasn’t like Yuna at all. Despite her young age, she managed to get into an amazing amount of trouble. She made as many messes and disasters as she could and enjoyed every minute of it. Everyone thought she was darling.
Seymour, though obedient and quiet and mature for his age, was hard to get along with for the first few years. He was terrified of everyone in the village, hiding from them constantly while curled in a ball, and afraid of being hit when approached. He barely ate and Auron confessed that while they left him at a hotel, they found the boy wouldn’t eat without either asking the maid to coax him, or writing him letters, reminding him to eat.
However, the boy’s eyes softened. He was seen smiling, years later. He talked. He never said anything for years, in fact, Auron was the one who told the village his name and he admitted it took a lot of coaxing from Braska for even that.
Though the villagers did their best to raise him as a child and lift his spirits, the one he owed the fact that he had not wandered off, never to be found again alive, was Yuna.
She insisted they be friends. She was told not to tell anyone who did not know already of her heritage, but what did that matter to another child just like her? Even if he was older?
Yuna treated his blue hair just like her single spiraled green eye. It made no difference to her. Indeed, Seymour enjoyed playing with her, despite how much younger she was. In a few years, not only was he getting into trouble just as she was, but he was helping her get into more trouble.
The two thought nothing could ever happen to their friendship, until Seymour realized something. He was growing older, he was changing, in both body and mind, and he was starting to notice and appreciate the tight and short skirts of the village women. They, however, weren’t interested.
Seymour was dedicated to keeping the village happy with him. Although he had succeeded in not letting the resulting depression take his life, he still remembered being left on Baaj and why. As much as he wanted to, he never approached any of the women on the island.
Even though the difference in their ages remained the same, he found it harder and harder to retain his friendship with Yuna. He thought of her differently when she was a child, and as she went through puberty, the men became interested her soon… including him.
To him, she just became more beautiful as she grew older and he… he was too old to want her, and too strange.
One day, he found he couldn’t stand it; he had to leave. But the question was: where? Where in the world would they accept him more than this quaint little island?
He was nowhere to be found for three days. When he was found, he emerged from the temple on Beseid, and told everyone he would become a summoner, leaving on the next boat.
The whole village was proud of him…finally… they accepted him.
And then he was gone. He was gone from their tiny little island. He was gone from their village. He was gone from Yuna. And she missed him; he was not gone from her heart.
It was then that she decided she would be a summoner too, one with a different purpose. One who would find her friend in the process.