The door burst open and Yuna took cover, hearing Jyscal’s voice as he almost literally threw his son into the bedroom. "You are going to stay in here and I mean it! If I find you disobeying me again, I’m locking you in the basement and breaking both of your legs!"
Jyscal slammed the door and Yuna could hear it being locked. Jyscal went to screaming at the guards by the door.
"What is with you two?" Yuna asked Seymour, who didn’t bother to get up from his place by the bed he’d crashed into.
Seymour turned his face away from her. "I just snuck into the damn study."
"Against his orders!" Yuna said.
"His orders have gone on since you married me! He’s locked us in our room, Yuna! We can’t get out unless we need to use the bathroom, and then we have guards following us!"
"Seymour, look at me," Yuna said, noticing he never turned to her, no matter how vehement he was.
"Yuna, no."
"Seymour, lemme see—" she said, putting her hand under his chin.
"Yuna, stop—" he tried to protest as she turned his face to her and she caught sight of his black eye.
"Seymour," she said.
"It’s not as bad as the one I gave him two days ago."
"Seymour, he almost threw you in jail for that!" Yuna protested. "The guards had to break up the fight!"
"If I said he started it, you’d scold me again, wouldn’t you?"
"Why can’t you two get along?" Yuna asked.
"Yuna, he came back because I was panicking myself to death over him. What makes you think we’d ever get along?"
"What is your problem?"
"My problem? He’s locking us up—"
"I meant both your problems!" Yuna yelled. "Why do you drive each other nuts like this?"
"Yuna, you just answered your own question."
"Huh?"
"Because we drive each other nuts! What, you think we do this because we like each other?"
"Have you two ever gotten along?"
"Only when someone breaks us up," Seymour said. "Or my mother or some of the people were watching."
"So you’ve always been trying to kill each other?"
"No, he’s always been trying to get rid of me. I’ve just been running away until I got big enough to fight back. Except for that one … accident."
"What kind of accident?"
"I accidentally summoned in front of my father … I was so mad. And then I was so afraid I ran away for a week. He had people looking for me everywhere.
He pretended he was worried about me, but I was locked in my room for a month afterwards. Maybe that’s why he’s doing this."
"What do you mean he pretended he was worried?"
"What, you think he throws chairs in public?" Seymour asked. "The whole place would have been destroyed."
"I don’t doubt you," Yuna admitted. "But then why such a …public … execution?"
"When I said he wanted to get rid of me, I meant he wanted me out of his sight. He wouldn’t actually kill me unless it would make him look good. He’s not an Ochuu, Yuna, he’s smart. What monarch would look good after killing his own son?"
"Well, you killed him."
"And look how good that made me look when people found out."
"Point."
"And then look at the mess you got in after killing me."
"Okay, I get it. Wait, why am I locked up?"
"Why the heck do you think he’d like you?"
"What did I do?"
"Well first you stopped him from killing me," Seymour said. "Then you wanted a wedding. He hates me. I’m the disgrace. I’m the bad spot on his reputation. I’m the one everyone thinks of and talks about behind his back when it comes to him. What do you think he’d think of the person who actually wants to marry me? You’re not a summoner to him. You’re not the one who defeated Sin, you’re not the one who stopped any wars or arguments or braved the Farplane and came back. You’re just someone who married the worst thing in his life."
"Great, I married a psychology class," Yuna pouted, sitting down next to him.
Seymour scooted away. "Then there’s the fact that you’re human."
"But he married—"
"That’s WHY he hates you, because you’re human. I get to keep my wife from another race, and to him I killed his."
"And I thought you were complicated when you were dead."
…………………………………………………………………………….
The door opened and Yuna wondered what was wrong this time, Seymour was minding his own business in the corner and reading a book—admittedly one which he’d taken while sneaking out.
As calm and nearly inanimate as Seymour had been for the last three hours, he suddenly stood up and went to the door.
"Seymour!" Yuna said, trying to hold him back.
"Why?" Seymour yelled, blocking the doorway and holding it open against the guards, who stopped trying to close it on him and backed away from the fight.
"If you don’t want to be fed, you don’t have to eat it," Yuna heard Jyscal say from the hallway.
"Seymour, stop it!" Yuna protested as the two started grappling. "I’m hungry."
"You can’t lock us in here!"
"I can and I am! I’m Lord here, not you!"
"At least tell us why you’re caging us up like animals!"
"Because you act like one, now get back in there!"
"Let me go!"
"I’m doing this for your own good!" Jyscal yelled, punching Seymour in the chest.
Seymour didn’t retort, but threw a plate of food at his father, who ducked. The plate crashed against the wall and Jyscal grabbed the door and slammed it with all his strength on Seymour’s hand and face.
"You can’t do this!" Seymour yelled, banging on the door.
There was no answer but the sound of something heavy being moved in front of the door and screaming at the guards in general from Jyscal.
Seymour rounded on Yuna, who wanted to give him a tirade for acting this way, but instantly forgot about it when he started screaming at her.
"Why don’t you join in, Yuna?" he yelled. "It’s a family tradition! Let’s have some three-way adversity, it’d be a real challenge!"
She backed away and prepared for a blow, but he stalked over to the window and sat on the sill silently.
She waited for something to happen, but all he did was rub his injured hand and inspect his broken nails.
"That’s it?" Yuna asked.
"What’s that mean, Yuna?"
"You were about to kill him and now you’re sitting there as if nothing happened."
"And?"
"How do you do that? Why?" Yuna asked. "Why weren’t you wrestling with the whole of Spira as a Maester? How come no one ever told me he could practically take on a basilisk bare-handed?"
"Yuna, things don’t work that way," Seymour said, staring out the window. "People learn things. Not everyone was against me, just him and that was a big lesson."
"That’s it?" Yuna asked.
"Yuna, people don’t resort to murder out of the blue. People have to learn to fight back; they have to learn to fight and what to fight. You’ve been wandering around without parents and torching most wildlife that thinks you might be lunch. I don’t see you nearly ripping someone’s throat out. Besides, I actually liked being Maester."
"But why didn’t you…?"
"I had a position of power. People respected me … somewhat. People remembered my name. I wasn’t just ‘that half-Guado’ anymore. Well, sometimes I wasn’t. People wanted to know what I thought. People wanted me to make them feel better. What kind of provocation is that to punch someone in the face?"
"Then stop doing anything," Yuna said. "Stop fighting, stop arguing, stop escaping. Stop talking to him if you have to."
"Yuna, that’d make things worse. He’s not doing this for attention. Why the fuck would I reward him for doing this to me?"
"Look, let me talk to him."
"He doesn’t like you."
"Seymour, I’m the one who can defend herself."
"What are you going to do? Escape just to give him a lecture? I’m sure that’d make a good impression."
"Let me think of something," Yuna said. "None of us are going anywhere."
…………………………………………………………………………
"Chappu, wait!" Lulu said.
"Why?" he asked.
"You can’t leave, please," Lulu said. "Don’t you understand how hurt I was last time you left? Last time I lost you?"
"Not as hurt as I was when I thought I was going to be executed with your child,’ he said. "I didn’t mean as much to you when I went to fight and defend you as a crusader as you did when I thought I’d never see you again or apologize for what I was doing."
"Chappu, I’m not mad about Vidina. You were doing the right thing, I was blinded—"
"No, I was the one who was blind," Chappu said. "I was the one who thought what you’d said years ago when I left to be a crusader meant something, that those words would ever mean something. You said I couldn’t be replaced in your life. You told me you loved me. You told me Wakka and I were two different people, in blitzball and everything else."
"Chappu, I meant all that, I really did," Lulu said.
"Well, it stopped meaning something. I’m going to ask those Al Behd for a ride somewhere else, and you’re not coming with me."
"Chappu, please don’t be mad. Chappu I—"
"You think I’m mad?" he asked. "You think I’m some possessive lout who’s going to tell you how to live your life? I could never be angry with you. I couldn’t be angry with you if you turned me down when I told you I wanted to marry you. I couldn’t have been mad at you if you told me you’d never love me. I just can’t stay here, Lulu."
"You don’t understand, Chappu," Lulu said. "You don’t understand how much this hurts me, how much you mean to me, how much I love you."
"No, I don’t," he said. "I don’t now and I never did. But I do know it isn’t as much as Wakka does." He turned around and started towards the airship, as calm as she’d ever seen him.
Lulu just stood and watched. She knew how stubborn he could be, especially when his heart was in it. She wished he were angry. She knew from experience how much longer a broken heart could last.
………………………………………………………………………………………
Author’s blah-blah-blah-ing: Observing Seymour’s actions, speech, and way of talking, I figured Jyscal couldn’t have actually been the nicest of persons.
Jyscal is based on my own mother, a friend’s mother, another friend’s sisters, and my own sister.
If you couldn’t already tell, I wrote this while studying for a midterm about aggression.
Remember, one of the keys to violence is this: ‘We hurt those we dislike and dislike those we hurt.’
Feel free to e-mail me if you want me to expand, but I’m not going to bore the others, so I’m shutting up now.