They were attacked just a day after boarding the ship. Tidus was wondering why everyone said he was the one making bad first impressions. So far, he’d been hit with a blitzball, sneered at, mistaken for lunch, and every time he was on a boat, he’d been attacked.
Well, Sin had the excuse of being an evil entity, and not a person or something close to one. Tidus—not stupid enough to voice it—was starting the think the creature was getting more annoying than actually devastating.
That was until he saw Kilika—what was left of it.
A crowd was forming around the boat before they had properly docked. It reminded Tidus of hoboes who would gather around the stadium before a blitzball game so they’d have a huge crowd to beg from and more chances to get enough money to eat.
"Can you spare something?"
"I need help finding my daughter."
"You have to help us!"
"Are there any summoners around here?"
"The last one went to the temple. She won’t be back for at least a day," someone answered.
"It’ll be too late by then," Yuna said. "Allow me to perform the sending."
"Would you?"
"Thank Yevon you came!"
Yuna began taking off her boots as half the crowd went to prepare for the sending or find a good place to watch while the other half just kept complimenting her.
"What’s a sending?" Tidus whispered to Lulu. "And what’s it have to do with shoes?"
"You really are clueless, aren’t you?"
"I’m trying not to be."
"Summoners send the souls of the dead to the farplane, where they belong. If the dead are not sent, they become fiends. They grow envious of the living and they are consumed by anger and hatred and are bent on the death of others."
"So, what if the person’s already like that and then they die?"
Lulu sighed and walked a few paces away to avoid him.
"What, I’m only asking—"
Someone in the crowd shushed him and Tidus noticed Yuna on the water, truly on the water. Her bare feet sent tiny ripples over flowers wrapped around half-sunken coffins.
Then, as if that weren’t the most surreal and yet beautiful thing Tidus had ever seen, Yuna lifted her wand and twirled. The light of the sunset played all over her as she kept twirling and dancing, the water moving with her. The water began to move under her, a spout growing higher and higher, spiraling with her and holding her aloft. A huge flower of water was unfurling under her and she kept the rhythm, still dancing.
Tiny sparkles flew up from the coffins and also spun around her in the same beat, same pattern as the water.
"What’s with the glittery things?" Tidus asked Wakka.
"That’s pyreflies, can’t you remember anything?"
"Apparently not," Tidus said. "What’s pyreflies."
"Dead stuff."
"Gotcha."
The water began to settle the pyreflies flew into the air and dissipated, Yuna walked back to shore.
She went over to Lulu, holding herself stiffly until she was in her friend’s arms, comforting her.
"What’s wrong?" Tidus asked. "I thought it was really pretty."
"But they’re dead," Yuna said. "There shouldn’t have to be sendings…"
"You’re right," Tidus said. "I was just sayin’ you did a good job. At least it looked like you did."
"Hush," Lulu said to Tidus.
"It’s okay, he doesn’t know," Yuna said, pushing away from Lulu. "I’m okay now. I’ll meet you at the hotel for dinner, Lulu. Thank you."
"Uh… What don’t I know?" Tidus asked after Lulu left. "Besides everything."
"Seymour taught me how to do that… send," Yuna said. "I miss him, and every time I perform a sending… I think about him. I wonder if anyone’s ever done one for him… or if someone should have or… I used to be happy that I wasn’t too late to stop him from defeating Sin but… but there’s all this misery and… he took no guardians, so I might still be too late."
"We’ll find him," Tidus said. "I mean, if I can survive sin three times in a row, he’s gotta have luck on his side. I mean he taught you all this summoner stuff, so think how good he’d be. We just gotta catch up with him."
"You really think…?"
"I think someone somewhere’s gotta have seen him. Summoner’s go on pilgrimages, right, so he’s been somewhere. Uh… but you should do the asking around, I don’t know what he looks like."
Yuna giggled. "He would be a bit easy to spot if he’s been somewhere…"
"Yeah! See. But we can’t go looking for someone on an empty stomach, right? Let’s go get dinner."
Yuna nodded and he followed her to the hotel. Her friends were surprised to see her smiling just after the sending, but there was something they were hiding. They knew she was worried about Seymour, but they doubted he had survived. They did not know if it was right for someone to be giving Yuna false hopes.
False or not, she had them, and she had been losing hope as the years dwindled and she saw no sign of Seymour. Everyone had been elated about her ability when her prayers were finally answered. She was elated because she could finally follow in Seymour’s footsteps, and hopefully catch up before his journey ended.