"Al behd and ronso!" they heard.
"Paine, you move an inch an I’m having Rikku bolt you to the side of the plane until this trip is over," Wakka said as Kimahri and Rikku walked over to speak with the guards.
"You do sound like Lulu," Paine muttered.
"The Ronso is allowed in as insurance. The Al Behd will be escorted to watch Lord Seymour and he will talk to you afterwards. Both of you will be escorted by guards. Either agree now or come back another day and we shall see about a new negotiation."
"Kimahri fight if Rikku hurt."
"And we kill you if she hurts any of our people. That is how it will work. Come along or leave quickly."
"We have names!" Rikku said as she followed the two guards.
"So do we."
…………………………………………………………………………………………….
"It’s been too long," Paine said.
"It’s been ten minutes," Wakka said, pulling paine back down. "That means one of them is talking to him. You know how much he likes his own voice. Worry when it takes a short time."
………………………………………………………………………………
No one was talking to Seymour.
Rikku was glad she hadn’t asked about the smell, or the heat. She was staring right at the source. And at Seymour. And at the crowd of Guado.
She had to concentrate to stifle her giggle, seeing Seymour spin like Yuna used to, years ago when she wore her shoulderless gi instead of her tank top with the hood made useless by her new braid.
She couldn’t giggle. Not now. Not staring at the burned house still smoking in the damp air. Not at the people who had come to watch. The Guado seemed fed up enough without her being distracted by Seymour’s skirts flying as he twirled and how she wondered how he managed the tiny steps in his large boots.
Rikku just thought it was because his feet were too big when he nearly tripped in the middle of the dance. She was almost disappointed he didn’t fall on his face.
She almost got her wish. The dance ended, his dress fell back the ground and he tripped on it. If it weren’t for a very fast and alert guard to catch him, she would have had a laughing spasm and ruined all negotiations.
Her giggles were permanently stifled as the sending proved to have worked.
Pyreflies flew up and dissipated into the air from the smoking house, as well as from most of the people standing around as they collapsed. Including one guard.
That caught Seymour’s attention.
"Hey!" Rikku yelled, but the remaining guard put his spear out, warning her not to make a move. "What just happened? What are you doing?"
Seymour made a hand gesture she was unfamiliar with, but the guards retreated to a few feet away from the two, a distance they kept until Rikku left.
Seymour looked at her as if she had interrupted his wedding again, but this time to sell candy.
"What did you just do to those people?" she shouted.
Seymour dropped his stick to the ground. "I sent my own father. How else was I to murder him effectively? Now I send people who did nothing. When sin is gone I try to stop a spiral of pain. Irony just isn’t humorous anymore."
"That doesn’t explain anything. There were children in that crowd!"
"I know that. I sent most of their parents yesterday. Something I feared I would have to do."
"What’s going on? Why are people dying? And not dying? And coming back?"
"What kind of inbred, isolated, obsolete island do you live on?" he asked, and walked off.
"Hey! Wait for me!" Rikku said, following him.
"You really have no idea what happens in the rest of the world until it lands on your heads, do you?"
"What are you talking about?" Rikku asked.
"All the former leaders of Spira are dead. Save for me and I had to come back from the dead. People fear anarchy. Right now there is a riot in Kilika, and Luca has closed what is left of its stadium until they elect a new leader. Thanks to this, no one can organize enough for war." He stopped at the edge of what appeared to be an orchard.
"Why? Why will people go to war?"
Seymour said nothing; he just gestured to the orchard. Each tree was flowering and creeping vines crawled up the trunks. Flowers grew around some. Some trees were smaller. Many were newly planted.
"It’s beautiful," Rikku said.
Seymour raised a hand to keep her out at the eagerness in her voice. "It is the cemetery. Only guado may enter here. Only three people have succeeded in breaking this rule. The first was dealt with centuries ago. The second was my mother. She was allowed in for marrying my father. The third has yet to be found and is the cause of all this."
"What… exactly happens if someone goes in?"
"The farplane begins to have problems; sendings are needed again. Anything dead could come back. People, pets, monsters."
"Sin?"
"Doubful, but not impossible."
"But that doesn’t—"
"I told you my mother was considered a guado and had the privilege to be buried in there," he said. Rikku didn’t like the idea of being buried anywhere a privilege, but kept the thought to herself. "Her tree was cut down, the dirt on her grave was unbroken but disturbed. It is one thing to trespass, it is another to defile."
"What does that have to do with spiders and monsters and things?"
"You have heard the stories; dreams and death are connected. That is not untrue… in a metaphysical sense. Not anymore."
"So… any nightmare?"
"What you dream and fear is not my matter. The guado handle guado problems. Remember that."
"But the whole world’s gonna die!"
"They’ll come back. Those I sent to the farplane will inevitably come
back. A human has trespassed and defiled the grave. If you were even as much
guado as me you’d distinctly smell it."
"So why can’t people die?"
"Oh, they can die. Guado can die. Ronso can die. Al behd can die. Humans cannot. When we refuse to let souls enter, we refuse to let souls enter. That includes the farplane."
"But why?"
"Is that all you vocabulary these days?"
"I got a lot more words for you. Maybe you’d like to her ‘em."
"Five guado were killed in Djose. The humans accused us of blaming them when we asked for help finding the culprit and struck out against visitors, including a mother and her children. To prevent war… or to delay it more likely…we have barred all humans from the city. You already go kicking and screaming to death, I hardly see why you go kicking and screaming to immortality."
"So if someone fixes this, people can die again. Creepy things will quit trying to eat us out of nowhere, right?"
"If by ‘fixes this’ you mean you return the murderer alive to us to perform the ritual that will heal the holy grounds, then no. We shall still bar humans from our city."
"But—"
"It was not my decision. I am only leader here because of my father. My people make most of the decisions here now. They are tired of cruelty and they are tired of war. This was all I could propose to keep them from each other’s throats and everyone else’s."
"My people put up with it!" Rikku told him. "We had to put up with it for centuries."
"As did we. We, however, did not have a happy little island to protect us from the rest of the world and we found putting our hands over our ears wasn’t a good enough replacement. Now, I am busy with my people, with sendings, and with the police. If you would like to overstay your welcome and fight with my guards, I’d be happy to oblige you with yet another war with the Al Behd." With that, he walked off. Rikku was left yelling at him. She might as have tried to kill him with a ribbon.