Yuna made her way to the dining room, watching the looks on the faces of the guards to see if she was going the right way since no one would actually tell her.
Seymour had spread out several papers in front of him and from the looks of them and the table he’d knocked his drink over on them twice—which would explain why it had moved two feet away from him.
"This one seems like it’ll solve itself," Seymour said to himself, moving the paper into a pile he could safely ignore. He picked up two more and gave an exasperated sigh. "Tell Kilika that I shall not speak to them in person until they make peace with Luca. And vice versa. And when I mean ‘peace’ I mean they actually keep from killing each other, not that they no longer have an official agreement to do so." He scribbled on the papers and handed them to the nearest guard. "Who else wants to involve me in their petty personal problems?" He shuffled through his many piles and then put his face in his hands when he found what he was looking for. "Right, Djose. Tell them… what am I going to tell them? …Tell them not until they can keep a leader of theirs for more than three days. Then I’ll see what exactly it is that they want."
"Um, are we having dinner or taxes?" Yuna asked.
Seymour looked up, flashed an expression of bafflement and buried his face in his hands again.
"Did I do something wrong?"
"What in the world are you wearing and why?"
"Um, this is the only thing Anzi could make fit me," Yuna said, twisting around to see if there was anything wrong with the outfit — other than the fact that she didn’t know if there was something wrong or not.
"Great, they’re bugging Anzi."
"Um…" Yuna said. "Who exactly is Anzi?"
"She’s… sort of my aunt. She’s my mother’s friend; she runs this place. I didn’t expect her to have kept my baby clothes."
"Baby clothes?" Yuna asked.
"I wore that when I was twelve," Seymour said, taking a bite of his food. "Well, you got yourself into this mess, sit down."
"What is it?" she asked, struggling with her skirt to sit in the chair.
"It’s called food. I’m sure you’re used to this principle by now," he said, and went back to eating. "Yuna, it is dead. You do not need to become sparkly and shoot it. Stop poking at it."
"I just wish I knew what it was, or used to be,"
"I grew up on this food, you know. And I did not complain about what other places put in front of me when I was Maester."
Yuna stared at it, wondering if she actually wanted to know what it was now.
"It’s fungi. So what?"
"Fungi?"
"There may be a little bark in it."
‘I can do this’ Yuna told herself mentally and bravely took a bite. She didn’t know what to think. The taste was too foreign to judge how good or bad it was. "Um, good fungus," she said.
Seymour ignored her.
‘At least he’s not interested in killing me,’ Yuna thought to herself. "So… any leads on… the…"
"No," he said in a tone that indicated he’d rather be eaten alive than talk to her. "And don’t go investigating."
"But —"
"You are here to uphold the laws and culture of these people. Going somewhere forbidden when such actions caused worldwide disaster is not the smartest or kindest of things to do. And don’t bug Anzi."
"I’m trying to help. You set the rules."
"I did not set the rules, my people did. They think because you’re famous you’re going to solve all their problems. You have not assured world peace or any diplomatic relations between anyone. All you have caused is a stalemate between the both of us."
Yuna angrily stared at her food, expecting it to start complaining at her as well.
"Did you really send those people?" she asked after a while, her anger having run out of fuel and now she was just bored.
"Yes," he answered, apparently equally frustrated and exhausted, if not more.
"How?"
"What do you mean ‘how?’"
"You… you’re not dead, are you?"
"Not anymore. And neither are a lot of sinspawn, either."
"What happened to you?"
"Let’s see… last I remember: I died. You killed me. Funny, I thought you’d remember that too."
"That happened lots of times. What are you complaining about? Last I knew…you wanted this."
"I’m sorry, I said I wished to end misery, not turn it into a sport."
"I meant marriage."
"That was… absolutely nothing. It was a phase."
"A phase?" Yuna said, almost spilling food everywhere. "That was some phase."
"It’s something you wouldn’t understand," Seymour said.
"Try me. I may live on an island, but I’m not stupid."
"Or so you say," Seymour said, holding his head. "I don’t want you to do anything idiotic."
"What’s that mean?"
"It means only now, after everything that has and is happening, am I actually accepted in the very place I grew up. I am no longer considered an outsider to the Guado, I am considered one of them and they actually trust me to protect them as my people. It also means if you ruin this and treat it as a little game to stop playing once you get tired of it, it means both our heads!"
"Just making sure we’re one the same page," Yuna said blandly and decided if she wanted company again, she’d invite the guards to play cards with her.
"I’d settle for being on the same book," Seymour said. "…Maybe Djose… no, they’d take that as an offense…"
……………………………………………………………………………………….
"Sir," one of the guards called out as he came in. "The human’s complaining again."
"They do that, get used to it," Seymour said from his shower. "If she wants one too, tell her to wait her turn."
"She wants to talk to you," the guard said.
"Tell her to wait her turn."
"She said to tell you she’d converse about it with Anzi if you refused."
"Tell her I’ll be out in a minute." Apparently, if there was one card Yuna knew how to play right when dealing with Seymour it was the annoyance card. Why she always had it in her hand was beyond him.
………………………………………………………………………………………….
"Yes?" Seymour asked, coming in the room, wearing his shorts and toweling his hair off.
"I… I… could you please put some clothes on?" Yuna stuttered, going red.
"Look, I live here. I can wear whatever I want. Besides, you already wander around in your underwear."
"I do not!"
"Yes, I can see why you got me out of the shower and started cutting into my sleep."
"I did not ask you out of the shower, I asked for a reply," Yuna said. "Your guards —"
"Do not take orders from you! Now ask me the damn question. I get up before dawn, if I ever get to sleep."
"What are you afraid of?"
Seymour stopped what he was doing and stared at her. Apparently he was mad about her asking, and surprised she was smart enough to wonder. "That’s personal. And don’t go bothering Anzi about it, she has orders as well as ethics not to tell you."
"I’m afraid of losing those close to me. And not being able to stop it," Yuna said.
"Very nice," he said, setting the towel on the chair, then taking a blanket and pillow off the bed.
"What are you doing?" Yuna asked.
"Sleeping somewhere else. I’m not sleeping in the same bed as you."
"You’re not even going to fight me for the bed?"
"Look, I have a migraine the size of Sin, I haven’t slept more than six hours in any given day, I have blisters from sendings alone, and I swear to whatever is holy these days that I will just stand there if I have to fight something that looks like it came out of someone’s nose again. I’ll be lucky if I have the energy to make it to the couch."
"You can’t leave!" Yuna complained. "I don’t know my way around this place."
"The bathroom’s down the hall, ask the guards."
"But… What about my things? Rikku didn’t bring them yet."
"Just change into one of your lingerie sets. You do it all the time."
"This isn’t lingerie."
"Could have fooled me." With that, he left Yuna in the empty bedroom. Yuna wondered if that was a good thing or not.