"What are you doing?" Auron asked.

Anzi refused to answer him.

"I asked—"

"Laundry. You’ll have to wait for it to dry if you want to wear that coat of yours."

"You took my coat?"

"It was filthy. And it smelled."

"I didn’t ask you to clean it. It was fine."

"Lulu asked me to."

"To wash my coat?"

"To help her with the laundry. She said she wasn’t up to doing much today, but her clothes were dirty."

"But why my things?"

"You left it on the floor, I thought it was dirty."

"I always leave things on the floor."

"And it was dirty."

"Would you leave my things alone!"

"Eep!" she squealed and took off towards Lulu’s hut.

Auron tore his coat off the clothes’ line, scattering a few other things on the ground as he did. "Shit, still wet."

"What are you doing?" Lulu demanded, stalking up to him.

"She took my things. Tell her to keep out of them."

"You haven’t even bathed since you got back. Your clothes probably still had all the stains you never washed out of them in the first place. If you are not going to give yourself some aspect of hygiene, you could be polite enough to let someone else do it for you."

"It’s not like you to get cozy with new people, Lulu."

"And it’s not like you to be anywhere near someone doing chores. She is scared. This is all she knows how to do. Now leave her alone. I already told her not to make your bed."

"She is not your mother."

"But I was one. All other mothers who lost their children have had others and have forgotten about the ones they lost. Everyone else who lost the one they love lost it to sin, not their own mistakes. She is the only one who understands."

"She is no one’s mother. The only thing she has lost is her mind. She is under a delusion that Seymour is still a child."

"Children are still children after they grow up. I thought you’d be the one to know that."

…………………………………………………………………………………..

The palace was almost completely empty. Yuna doubted Jyscal’s orders that the two of them stay together no matter what or where was an attempt at punishing either of them by infringing on privacy.

At first, Seymour’s legs, though healed, were still tender and in pain. Yet he had too much pride to ask for help from anyone. Several times, they had the misfortune to walk past Jyscal, who would ridicule Seymour about having to use the walls for support or tell him it was his own fault.

If they were hungry, they went to the kitchen and had to hunt down someone who worked there. If they waned something to do, they both looked around the entire palace to find nothing but a pack of cards left by the guards, who had all been fired, some arrested. If they wanted a shower, Seymour was suddenly intensely uncomfortable.

At first, he was indifferent. As huge and spectacular guado like their clothes, they yawned at the mere lack of them. He had been seen while showering before and the only time that had ever made him uncomfortable was once when his father walked in and Seymour thought he was about to be killed.

Once he stepped out, however, he was suddenly very self-conscious and aware of the fact that he was the only thing for Yuna to watch while waiting for her turn. He immediately wrapped a towel around himself and gestured for her to take her turn.

He toweled off as she undid the laces on her boots, turning his face away, but unable to avert his eyes.

‘They’re just legs,’ he told himself. ‘It’s not like she’s kept them hidden under much of anything in that outfit.’ Still, he soon found himself unable to concentrate on even drying his hair and turned towards her to get a better look.

He shook his head and reprimanded himself for thinking like that. Nudity was nothing in the very culture he had grown up in, what was wrong with him?

Besides, thinking like that would just make him more miserable.

He turned away completely and threw on his pants and robe.

As he was tying his shoes though, his eyes wandered again.

This time there wasn’t any room in his mind to even realize what he was doing until she stepped out of the shower and looked right at him.

By then it was too late.

He had been caught and there was no way out. No way to hide and no way to pretend it didn’t happen.

Not only had he seen everything, he had watched it all. He had enjoyed the show and she hadn’t given him one; all she had wanted was to get clean.

"Seymour?" she asked. "You okay?"

"Shit… I’m so sorry, Yuna. I…" he said, stumbling over words he didn’t know how hey would make things better. "I.. I didn’t mean.. I mean…"

"Seymour, we’re married. It’s fine. Can you hand me my shirt?"

He turned away and handed it to her without looking, without his head turned to her at all.

"You weren’t the only one looking," she said.

Somehow, it didn’t make him feel any better.

………………………………………………………………………….

Yuna tried out her own way of retaliation. She had been bored stiff and hated even vaguely feeling that she was locked up in the castle. Voicing her opinion only elicited an apology from Seymour for having gone against his father. Apparently Jyscal had hurt him more than she had thought, and if Jyscal didn’t know it yet, she wanted to keep it that way.

When he was healed enough to walk long distances without help—or just too stubborn to let anything show—she grabbed his arm and took him outside. They wandered the city for hours. She had been sure not to tell Jyscal they were going out in the first place.

It may have seemed childish, but picking a real fight with someone who threw chairs hardly seemed to be a wiser idea. Technically, she was not going against his orders. They had been told to stay together, not tell him where they were going.

Considering all the guards had been fired, Yuna was glad to see the people as they went about their lives, and that they weren’t disturbed by her presence—although she began to wonder if any news of assassination attempts had reached them at all.

She suddenly found herself the center of attention again, something she had missed for quite some time, or had feared when Jyscal was involved. People wanted to touch her hair. They wanted to look at her face and wonder why humans were so plain. They wanted to inspect her hands and wondered how she held anything with such short fingers and what they saw in transparent nails.

Seymour was getting similar attention, although he wasn’t enjoying any of it. People scolded him for being a Maester, saying it was something humans and other races did and his place was here. People scolded him for trying to look guado and told him there was no point, he wouldn’t be one of them no matter how hard he tried. People argued about how well the colors on his face matched his hair or if it was dark enough, about whether he was more human or guado.

Yuna got her share of scoldings about not looking good enough or trying hard enough.

Then the topic of gossip in the small crowd around them changed for the worse.

"You married him? My, they must have them small in Beseid."

"Remember, it’s not the size that counts."

"Oh, yes it is!"

"Speaking of size, look at those."

"Nothing like his mother."

"His mother at least looked like us, when it came to up there."

"I’m not sure which one of them has to be more desperate for it."

"Well, I wouldn’t push them into anything. I mean look at those hips."

"Worry about the hips later, when they’ve done something. You know the first thing men look at is the chest. That black mage, what was her name? Now she had a nice couple of spheres."

"Maybe if she tried to look a little more like that."

"Well, I heard she can cast both black and white spells. There’s gotta be a white magic spell for that."

"That would be a black magic spell."

"Healing, nurturing. It’d be a white magic spell.

"But what they do to your back. It’d be a black magic spell on your chest."

"I think it’d be more of a status effect."

"Come on," Yuna said, grabbing Seymour’s hand and quickly leaving. The group didn’t seem to notice them disappearing. "You okay? You look a little… petrified."

"You could say that," Seymour said, holding his head as if he’d had a rather nasty blow. In some ways, he had.

Yuna was still adamant about staying away from Jyscal. She stayed in the city until nightfall. Overall she felt refreshed being outside again, seeing nature, and going an entire day without a single fight. It had been a bit uncomfortable trying to find some place secluded enough to have lunch without another crowd forming and causing another embarrassing conversation or two..

As much as she enjoyed it, she noticed Seymour hadn’t. He barely said anything aside from what he wanted to eat. He seemed uncomfortable around all the people and they seemed uncomfortable with him, even if they didn’t voice it. The kinder ones sounded like Anzi reprimanding him, only not as nice.

The sky grew dark and most people went home, some of them giving disapproving ‘tsk’s to them as they passed them.

The nicest person was a man selling souvenirs, thinking all his junk was just what both of them wanted and taken aback when they liked their guado clothes and food. He was kind enough to sell Yuna a few books in language she could read.

Yuna opted for a hotel instead of the palace, promising Seymour she’d protect him if his dad became angry. He didn’t seem to care and she wasn’t sure if he was hiding anything or not.

The hotel clerk was the first person not to give them anything disapproving. She just looked curiously at the two and shrugged before asking their money. "Have a nice time you two," she said, handing them the key and winking. "Don’t worry, we won’t complain about the noise."

Yuna turned to Seymour, but he had found something extremely interesting about his shoes. "Come on, let’s try and keep it down for the other people," Yuna said, grabbing his arm and dragging him away.

"Don’t worry, I know just how hard it is to take dates home when you live with your parents!" the clerk yelled.

…………………………………………………………………………………..

"I’m sorry," Yuna said, closing the door.

"People do that. You just gave them a…rather embarrassing topic to talk about with your agreement to… consummate our marriage."

"What are you talking about?"

"Yuna, for someone who’s saved the world twice, you’re rather naïve about it. You don’t insult someone with more power than you, and you don’t compliment someone powerless. We’re just royal baggage until you get pregnant."

"I meant why were you so embarrassed about talking about a consummated marriage."

"I don’t want to talk about it."

"You really are embarrassed."

"I said I don’t want to talk about it," Seymour said in a tone that meant he wished to conversation had never started and walked over to the window to watch as it started to rain. "You never really think about things in terms of politics, do you?"

"What’s that supposed to mean?"

"You don’t really think of the consequences of a mixed marriage to the rest of a nation, or plan to save someone just to stop a war. I know I can’t remember it well, but sending someone at a wedding, when they’re a Maester and a ruler of an entire race would have thrown the world into chaos with a war. You don’t consider those things, do you?"

"Not really. But—But… I…"

"I’m not scolding you, Yuna. I appreciate it. My entire life has been politics and most of the time I’m the offending issue."

"Just because you’re half human?"

"And because of the decisions I made because of it. I was told I’d never be good enough for these people, so I stopped trying and I became Maester. I was good enough for humans most of the time, but that just made me look worse to the guado."

"Why do people do things like that?"

"Because prejudice is natural. And they’re going to exclude anyone even vaguely part of whatever group they frown upon. Because when you’re born into politics, you can’t escape it."

"I meant why do people do things purely because of an insult? I lost my father because my mother was an Al Behd. Auron joined him because an important woman insulted him after he turned her down. Tidus—"

"I don’t want to hear about Tidus," Seymour said. He was jealous, but not angry. "Although I will admit that you deserve to be with him and not me."

"He was jealous too."

"What did he have to be jealous of? He had you."

"And you wanted me too."

"I’m sorry, I don’t understand. He was jealous because he saw me as a threat? I mean, to a relationship with a summoner?"

"He didn’t know I was going to die in the final summoning. He would… he would tell me… about Zanarkand… his Zanarkand…he promised to take me there and show me everything. All the lights and sounds and the people." Tears were running down her cheeks.

Seymour left his spot by the window and walked over to her. He reached out his hand, but didn’t touch her. He didn’t know if he should when she was crying about loving someone else.

"I’m sorry," she said, wiping her eyes. "I regret a lot of things I did to you, now. But I don’t regret being with you. I’m sorry, I didn’t mean to talk about Tidus like that."

Seymour put his arms around her back, holding her in a loose hug, surprised when he found she didn’t push him away.

"I wouldn’t ask you to chose between us, Yuna. Not now," he said. "I know who you’d choose and I wouldn’t get in the way."

"No, you don’t. Not now," Yuna said. "Because I don’t."

"Yuna, there’s nothing I can really offer you but a family almost as broken as the furniture, and it’s my fault. I had power, I had peace, I could protect when I was Maester, but not now."

"You lost both your parents because your father couldn’t see you for anything more than an insult, and that was all he ever cared about. It’s not your fault. My father loved me, as much as people frowned on a half-Al Behd. I chose to become a summoner like him, and he promised he would love me, no matter what I chose. Even if I was scared."

"Yuna," he said, tightening the hug. She pressed her face against his chest and gently touched the lines of his tattoos. "If you would be happier without any of this, without me, I would understand."

"I wouldn’t. Not now," She said, putting an arm around his neck and pulling him down for a kiss. "Even though I don’t understand either."

Whatever gossip this would spread—that he had been kissed and only been kissed—he didn’t care. Yuna didn’t care if he was a half-breed, what scandal might erupt, what his father might think. He found he no longer cared either.

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