Yuna was really starting to realize there was a downside to having the only map of the entire world in the airship.

She wondered if she’d seen that tree before, and if so, why hadn’t she seen that other tree before? Or was she at the wrong angle and only recognized one of them? Or was she completely mistaken and never seen these trees before?

The only conclusion she could come to was that she was lost. How much more lost was she than the last time she thought she’d seen the same tree?

Yuna sighed, then suddenly realized that although she had been standing still contemplating trees, the underbrush was still rustling. Wind didn’t make that noise. Nor did it snap sticks.

Whoever had made the noise new she was here; the noise suddenly stopped.

"Who’s there?" she asked, going for her guns and turning toward the noise.

Nothing.

"I heard you!" Yuna said.

There was a noise of someone ducking into a bush.

Now Yuna knew where the noise was coming from. "AHA—huh?" she said, shoving away the branches and seeing who was lurking in them. "Seymour?"

"It’s just you," he said, immensely relieved.

Yuna had no response to that. It was confusing enough finding Seymour hiding in bushes, it was weirder still seeing his hair covered in twigs and leaves, his skin with dirt, and he wasn’t wearing his usual robe, jus this pants and boots. "What are you doing here?" she finally managed.

"Is anyone else with you?"

"Just a bunch of trees."

"Promise you won’t tell anyone you saw me."

"Why?"

"Because my father’s already mad at me. He’s even more pissed that I managed to sneak Anzi out. He’s not going to be happy I managed to escape myself."

"Why’s he mad about Anzi?"

"Because sooner or later he was going to find out she helped kill him."

Again Yuna had no reply. What made things worse was that Seymour actually seemed scared. No just concerned, but genuinely scared, almost as badly as the night she’d come out to find Anzi holding him to keep him from slashing at the walls… so frightened he refused to sleep later that night.

"Yuna--?"

"I promise."

"Thank you," he said, adjusting himself into a sitting position.

"What happened to your arm?" Yuna asked.

"It’s broken. I guess I’m not helping it crawling on it, am I?" he said, not looking at her and knowing how pathetic how looked. "Anzi was the only one who knew how to deal with this sort of stuff, and she learned it from my mother. I never bothered to learn it from her. Bad mistake."

"You can’t heal yourself?"

"Not without that stick and it would have been too much of a risk to try and take it with me. I’m pretty useless these days."

"Here," Yuna said, handing him a potion from her pocket. "Everything drops a few of them these days, and monsters aren’t that rare."

"Thanks," he said, smiling weakly and taking the bottle.

"How did you—" Yuna asked.

"My father and I had a fight. He stopped when my knife fell out of my sleeve and took it away. Then he locked me in my room. It took a few attempts to escape successfully."

"Are you as lost as I am?" she asked, sitting next to him.

For a while he just sipped at the potion, as if he thought he should just give it back. "Unfortunately, no."

"Where are you going, then?"

"It’s too risky to go to another nation. They’d either rat me out, or my father would get angry at them for harboring me when he found out."

"So what are you going to do?"

"I’m going to see my mother."

Yuna realized that around her she was becoming more like her old self, the shy girl who never knew what to say and was always awkward when she did dare to speak. "You’re not like the man I knew."

"You didn’t know me," he said, finishing the potion and tossing the bottle off into the brush. "You knew a fiend and the accusations against him."

"What… what do you remember… from when you were dead?"

"I told you, things are rather blurry about that. Stupid, isn’t it? I can remember the farplane perfectly, but the rest of the time I was dead it’s like I was hungover. I remember it was really cold somewhere."

"We were almost married."

"What do you mean by almost?"

"Tidus… interrupted it."

"Did you throw yourself off of some cliff or something?" Seymour asked, his hand on his temple, concentrating on making sense of the weird images he remembered.

"My summon caught me."

"Then why have bothered with it all? I can’t imagine marrying a dead man as enjoyable in any way."

"I needed a way to get close enough to send you."

"Smart…I guess," he said, turning away and sighing.

"Do you… do you remember anything else about the wedding?"

"Guns… other machina… lots of stairs."

"Do you remember why?"

"Why what?"

"Why… you still wanted to marry me… even after I killed you?"

"It’s… You were the only other thing I really thought about. That and ending everything through Sin."

Yuna said nothing. Seymour seemed to have nothing but surprises for her. Surprises she had no answer to. Questions, but not answers. "You’re mad about marrying me now, though."

"Because it’s not what I really wanted," he said, still not looking at her. "You thought it was all a joke, or just a way to save the world again. I guess what I thought I saw in you was never really there."

"But… you said… you said you admired—"

"All summoners were what Spira depended on. I admired all of them for what they did. For giving their lives for someone else. I envied them because I wasn’t strong enough… I was too afraid.

"What I thought I saw in you was different. I picked you out of the crowd despite everything. You were obviously half Al Behd, and I thought you’d… understand or… not be afraid to speak to me at least…" He wrapped his arms around himself, and wished she weren’t standing so close to him. "I heard you were a summoner and that all your guardians were your friends and… everything I wanted to be but couldn’t be. I envied you, and… But there was more to it than just that. You would speak to me without being afraid of some ugly hybrid or hating me because my father wasn’t married to my mother when I was born."

Yuna reached toward him and brushed a few short bangs from his face. He had the same expression as the first time she had killed him, wondering if she pitied him after all she knew of him. She was right, he didn’t want pity. That would have been an insult. He suddenly turned his yes to her, wondering what she thought of him, wondering if she’d keep her promise and why she cared at all.

He looked away again, but slowly reached for her other hand, barely touching it, but comforted by the fact that she didn’t pull away. "I thought it was just an infatuation, just wanting something I couldn’t have… but then you and your friends showed up at the gates and insisted on speaking with me. I just wanted you all to leave, but when you accepted a marriage… I hated you. It wasn’t a marriage to you. I doubt you’d even go through with it at all… and… I realized I still loved you. You made it so much worse because you finally gave me what I wanted but not for the reason I wanted, or even… I guess it doesn’t much matter now, does it?"

"Seymour—"

"I don’t want to speak of it anymore," he said, standing up. "Beseid is to the southwest. I’m going east."

"How are you going to survive all the monsters?"

"The same way I’ve been doing so, so far. I run away and thankfully most of them can’t climb trees."

Yuna chuckled at the thought of Seymour stuck up a tree like a cat. "I’ll come with you," she said.

"Why?"

"Because… it’s what’s right."

"As opposed to what is best," he said and led the way.

………………………………………………………………………………………..

Despite the obstacles they came up against, and how often such occurrence were, Yuna couldn’t be distracted and went back to wondering what Seymour had meant.

What exactly had he asked her to do?

Was that his reasoning for wanting to become Sin? Not because he wanted to kill people, but keep them from living lives like his?

He had definitely been surprised when she found him creeping around in the bushes; he couldn’t have meant to help him escape to Baaj. Or had he?

Wait, Seymour had said this was to escape from his father. Had he planned to kill his father again?

Was he escaping because he couldn’t do it himself?

Why had he killed his father?

And what did Seymour have to do with his mother dying? Why was he going back…?

Why was everything a personal secret for him?

For that matter, where were they going? How were they going to get to Baaj without a ship or plane?

"Damn," Seymour swore quietly, but loud enough to divert Yuna’s attention.

"What?"

"I misjudged the tides. I think I can make it, though."

"What about me?" Yuna asked.

"There’s a ledge at the end of this skiff," Seymour said, pointing the distance. Whatever he was pointing at was obscured by fog. "You can stay dry on top of it until the tide goes out again."

‘Stay dry was a polite way of say ‘not drown.’ The water had risen all the way up to the edge of the lace on the last tier of Yuna’s skirt. Water had crept into her shoes and her feet were not only soaking but somewhere between freezing and numb. Even the air itself seemed to carry the danger out drowning in. The wind stung at the flesh and the piercing cold remained on your skin. The mist was so thick, with Seymour wandering a little more than a foot ahead of her, he was already fading away.

"And what are you going to do?"

"I told you. I’m fleeing to Baaj."

Yuna didn’t like his tone. She had heard other summoners before and she knew when someone meant they didn’t intend to return.

He had seemed increasingly distant since she’d found him. She wondered if he’d make it to the boat without passing out from exhaustion. She was surprised at how well he wandered across the submerged rocks without tripping. Then again, she was surprised there was a mile long shoal that wasn’t on any maps—probably because it was underwater half the time and less than a foot wide. She was surprised she never wondered about how Seymour and his mother were taken to Baaj to be abandoned there in the first place.

"What are you going to do?" Yuna asked through half-numbed lips that were beginning to shiver. "Swim?"

"Baaj is a territory owned by the Guado. They use it for informal executions."

Yuna nearly walked into the ledge he’d spoken of without even seeing it; the mist was growing thicker. "What’s that mean?" she asked, rubbing her nose, afraid she’d hit it and it was too nub for her to feel it.

"It means…" he said, untying a rope connected to a wide skiff with a strange sail on it. "It means nothing." He didn’t get on the boat. The water was almost to Yuna’s knees now. He made no move for either the boat or the ledge.

"It means you’re scared to go back there, doesn’t it?" Yuna asked him.

He turned to her and stared at her. She could see him swallow, but she couldn’t see him breathing. He wasn’t looking at her, he was looking at the memories of the last time he’d been there. That was what had kept him awake for so long. Get caught, or go back to somewhere he’d rather drown than return to.

Yuna moved slowly through the water to him. His eyes barely focused on her. She said nothing as she took his hand in her own.

Seymour looked at her eyes, fighting hard to look at them and not his memories. Fear gave way to confusion on his face.

"I’ll go with you."

"Why?" he asked.

"Because you shouldn’t have to face this alone."

There was no smile or anything close to it on his face. He never said any sort of thanks. He picked her up out of the rising water and set her in the boat and climbed in himself.

"It doesn’t mean nothing, does it?" she asked, as he reached down and shoved off against a sunken rock.

"It means I found my mother on the floor with a knife through her chest, and the letter she had been so happy to have finally received from my father two days before in her hands. He had asked her to kill me, or leave me to die. My father… he was so angry when he saw that I was the one that survived…" He never finished his sentence. He kept staring at his feet. He didn’t try to hide the tears on his face.

Yuna said nothing. She knew what the last of the sentence was going to be.

‘…he always has.’

Back