Anzi was starting to change her mind about Beseid. Admittedly, there was a lot more sunlight than she was used to and at first it charred her skin a bright red. The people, though were very nice, overall, although Wakka and Lulu were still not talking to each other—actually, Lulu wasn’t talking to anyone but Rikku, Paine, or her.

Still, she quickly fit in and found a niche for herself. The people were appreciative of the extra work, the children liked her, and Lulu depended on her for comfort, finding little in the younger women. It also turned out the Al Behd weren’t the only ones wanting something slightly different from her.

Still, there were problems—no, one problem. And it seemed to be following her.

She quickened her pace down the path. Wakka was watching the new team members train and once she was with Wakka, she’d be safe.

"What are you doing?" Auron asked behind her, startling her so much, she nearly dropped the basket she was carrying on her head.

Anzi refused to answer and just picked up what she had dropped and started to walk away, doing her best to pretend she hadn’t really heard him.

"I asked you a question!" Auron yelled, grabbing her free arm and knocking the basket and it contents on the ground.

Anzi screamed as he yanked her back up. "They’re just sandwiches!" she said, struggling to pull her arm free.

"You don’t live here!" Auron said. "These people can take care of themselves! Stop coddling them."

"Let go of me!"

"You’re here because Jyscal doesn’t care to watch you and decided to dump you on us. It doesn’t mean you can make yourself at home here." He started to pull her along with him to lead her back to the village, but she surprised hi by managing to throw him off balance and wrench her arm free.

"Hey, what’s going on?" Wakka yelled down the path.

"Anzi? You okay?" someone else yelled.

"Oh, its you," Wakka said as he stopped running to see the whole disaster was—as usual—Auron.

Several team members caught up with Wakka; most of them began to complain about the food spilled on the ground.

"You got somethin’ against food?" Wakka asked as Anzi left down the path back toward the village.

"I don’t like her and I don’t trust her," Auron said.

"Yeah, we knew that already!" someone yelled at him.

"Didja have ta take it out on our lunch?"

"She’s getting too familiar around here."

"Of course she is, she’s stayin' here!" Wakka yelled.

"She should remember why she’s here. She’s not a maid, and she’s not welcome here."

"Not from you," Wakka said. "She’s been bringing us lunch for the last three days, she’s been great. She even fixed a sprained ankle. She’s just helping out. That’s all she knows how to do and you’re the only one complaining. Look, I know you don’t help out around here, but that doesn’t mean you should keep anyone else from doing that."

"You are all turning into babies around her."

"Look, speaking of babies, she’s the only one Lu wants to talk to. I’ve lost my brother twice, I lost my son, but I am not going to lose Lu. If I even think you’re chasing her away from Lu, I’m going to be the one throwing the furniture, understand?"

"Lulu’s the one you should be keeping an eye on," Auron said, and started stomping off to see what Anzi was doing now.

Wakka turned and started walking back to the team, all of whom he had chased away with his screaming.

………………………………………………………………………………………………….

"Hey, there you are!" Rikku shouted and waved to Anzi as she spied her returning to the village. "Lulu wants you!"

"She hasn’t come out of her hut all day again," Paine said.

"I’ll talk to her," Anzi sighed. "If Auron asks, I’m in the jungle."

Lulu hadn’t been herself since Chappu had left. She was talking less overall, and eventually, she stopped caring about a lot of things: keeping things in order, taking care of herself, eating, doing anything, getting up.

Anzi quietly started cleaning up the dark hut until Lulu spoke. "Lulu, I’m not magic," she said, finishing with putting back the last of Lulu’s stuffed dolls. By now she’d cleaned the floor as best she could, made the bed, and lit a candle for light. Lulu hadn’t said anything throughout the whole thing. "Here, I can fix your hair, you’ll feel better."

Lulu shook her head. "I don’t care."

"Fine, but it’s still a mess," Anzi said, undoing the old ratty braids.

"Anzi—"

"Here, we’ll trade. You can have Seymour and I’ll have Vidina. You’re best friend can nearly die in childbirth, your other best friend can always be angry at the closest thing you’ll ever have to your own baby. Then he can send the kid and your friend away for two years and he be such an ass about everything she kills herself—where’s your brush? Try helping that poor little kid. Nothing but screaming for the next ten years and then he starts growing up. You can dodge chairs and have bandage both of them up. And he’s not stupid. He’s too smart for his own good; he understands what everyone thinks of him. And he’s still just a kid. Try talking to someone who thinks—who knows the whole world hates him for something he can’t change, who hates himself too—about girls, or growing up. I’ll take Vidina and you can fix Seymour."

"I still want my baby," Lulu said. "I don’t care, I want to hold him again. I want to look at his eyes and… I wanted to see his first step. I wanted to hear his first words. I wanted to… I wanted to be there."

"I know. I never said I never wanted Seymour. I never wanted him to die… and I ran away when he did. I never thought he’d scare me, but he did. But that didn’t make things any better. It didn’t mean I didn’t miss him, want him back alive or wish I could do something."

"It’s not just Vidina… I didn’t know he would come back, but—but I never wanted to lose him again. I never wanted to lose him at all. No one understands about Chappu. Wakka thinks he does, but… but he doesn’t. He misses his brother; he’s never lost someone he loved. No one understands."

"I do, don’t worry."

"I don’t mean Seymour or Juuno."

"I never said I did either. Hold still. I had someone, about six years ago. We were so in love. At least, I thought we were. Sometimes I think hearts were made to be broken, other times I just keep hoping that’s not true. I keep hoping so hard when I think about Yuna and Seymour. He’s smart, but they’re both just still kids."

"What happened?" Lulu asked.

"Got married. Not to me. Never saw Jyrrin again. There, that’s one done."

"What did you do?"

"I took care of Seymour… as best I could. It didn’t work, did it? I hope Yuna can make him happy. That’s all he needs, really, someone to give him something he doesn’t have to fight against."

"After that, I mean."

"I just did what I always did. I don’t give up. I lose a lot and I can’t really fight, but I don’t give up."

"I don’t know how," Lulu said. "I fight, but I don’t know how anymore."

"That’s three done," Anzi said. "You’ll find a way."

"I’ve tried. I just don’t care anymore."

"What about Wakka?"

"I don’t care about Wakka."

"You care about the girls, right?"

"I don’t know. They don’t need me. Not anymore."

"They care about you. And that means they need you. Here," Anzi said, wrapping the four braids in a bun. "Come on."

Anzi blew the candle out walked outside.

Lulu slowly got up and followed. Her dress was askew from sleeping in it and she hadn’t bother to put her corset of for days.

"You look like you haven’t had much sleep," Anzi said.

Lulu shook her head.

"Here, you need some sleep," Anzi said, taking her

"But my hut’s over there," Lulu said.

Now it was Anzi’s turn to shake her head. "You need people, Lulu. Stay in the crusader’s old lodge for a while. Just until you get back on your feet." Anzi held the flap open for Lulu, gesturing for her to go in.

"But Wakka sleeps here… sometimes."

"Don’t talk to him then. You don’t have to talk to anyone. Just be with people. And get some sleep."

"Then what?"

"Then you can help me. I need Auron chased away mostly. You seem better even when you’re arguing. It doesn’t matter what you do, just be doing something. Less time to mope and think. Sleep first." Anzi dropped the cloth over the doorway. "Where’d Rikku go?" she asked herself.

"Auron!" she heard Rikku yell, just before he grabbed her arm again.

"What were you just doing?"

"She asked me to talk to her!"

"You’re the last person she needs to talk to!"

"And you’re the last person I want to talk to!"

"Leave Lulu alone!"

"Auron!" he heard and turned before getting punched in the face by someone who had the strength, but not the practice for punches. "Leave Anzi alone!" Lulu yelled.

The people, who were about to form a crowd around them froze and went silent.

"What is your problem?" Lulu yelled as Anzi scampered off.

"She is the problem, no one else seems to notice."

"That’s because it’s not a problem with anyone else."

"It is. Since when do you act like this?"

"You weren’t there when I got news that Chappu was crushed, miles away, on the Djose shore by Sin—after he promised to marry me when he came back."

"Why do you need anyone when you’ve survived this before?"

"Why shouldn’t I need someone?"

"Is anyone in there?" someone new yelled.

"Did you just hear Yuna?" Rikku asked Paine. "Ah! Now I remember!" and she ran past Lulu and Auron into the hut.

"Yunie!" she yelped, bouncing up and down happily, seeing a somewhat bored and very frazzled Yuna on the sphere.

"Lemme talk to her!" Paine said.

"Hey, I got here first,"

"I want to talk to her!"

"Guys?" Yuna asked.

"She’s my cousin!"

"That doesn’t mean I don’t care about her either!" Paine said, shoving Rikku.

Rikku shoved back and two seconds later they were wrestling on the floor.

"Guys?" Yuna asked. "Anyone?"

Thankfully Wakka came in a few seconds later.

"Yuna! How’s it goin’ ya?" he asked, picking up the sphere and moving away from Rikku and Paine, who were still wrestling.

"You have no idea—"

"LEAVE HER ALONE!" Lulu yelled at Auron, yanking him into the hut. "OR ELSE!"

"Okay, so everything’s kinda like that," Yuna said.

"More chairs?" Wakka asked.

"Not since the fire."

"FIRE?" everyone in the room asked, including Rikku and Paine, who were so caught off-guard that they stopped fighting.

"That was about a month ago."

"You didn’t tell us there was a fire?" Lulu asked.

"All the guards and messengers were fired after that, so I couldn’t have written a letter, and I had to take Seymour anywhere I went, so I couldn’t come tell you in person. I finally found a sphere to link up."

"One of them lit something on fire?" Lulu asked.

"Probably Seymour," Auron said.

"Actually, it was one of the guards," Yuna said. "Kinda."

"Kinda," Paine said.

"He turned out to be a spy for whoever’s trying to kill us."

"Sounds like everyone got out okay," Rikku said.

"Not really. They’re even more pissed, everything’s burnt, Seymour’s legs were broken."

"You’re kidding!" Rikku yelped.

"I’m not."

"Well, you wouldn’t have called us to tell us what happened last month," Paine said. "What’d they break recently?"

"Paine!" Wakka scolded.

"I meant furniture."

"A door, but now I’m not sure if Seymour’s alive."

"What’d he do?" Wakka asked. "Run away again?"

"I don’t think so, but for all I know, he could have. I haven’t seen him or Jyscal for the last two days and before that he suddenly—" she broke off and screamed, covering her head. There was a sound of something smashing into glass.

"Yuna! Yuna?" Wakka yelled.

Yuna looked over and turned off the sphere, leaving it blank for her friends.

"Okay, I’m not the smart one, but I think we need to go see what’s going on over there," Rikku said.

"Ya," Wakka added.

Everyone else had a sense of foreboding they thought was too obvious to voice.

…………………………………………………………………………………………..

Yuna turned the sphere off and stood up. Apparently the plan of waiting for Yuna and Seymour to let their guard down hadn’t worked as well as the assassins had hoped and they weren’t going to wait for another failed plan.

Thankfully, Seymour hadn’t been sitting in his usual place on the windowsill—or maybe if he had he’d have seen them throw the brick, or maybe they’d have thrown something more dangerous, like a grenade.

There had never been any glass in the window. It had been meant to let the heat and cold and even rain in, or out, depending on the weather.

Whoever had thrown it didn’t seem to know that. The brick they had thrown went right through and smashed into a mirror, scattering reflective glass all over the floor.

Stomping over the glass and shaking her skirt so any pieces that caught on it flew off, Yuna picked up the brick. There was a piece of paper tied to it.

‘GET OUT’ she read, just as she heard Jyscal storming up the stairs.

"I—" she started as he threw the door open.

"I don’t care," he said. "It’s obviousl—" He was cut off at the sound of gunfire and the now familiar sound of a chair breaking. "FUCK!" Jyscal yelled, grabbing Yuna’s arm so violently she dropped the brick, lucky that she moved her foot to keep up with him as he dragged her out of the room, lest the brick land on it. "They don’t even wait for me to see what chaos they tried the first time! Seymour what’s going on?"

"So he’s okay?"

"Not if he’s done something stupid."

…………………………………………………………………………………………

‘Where am I?’ Seymour wondered. He couldn’t remember the previous night very well. He remembered one of the worst arguments with his father—no, an argument is when both sides are involved. It was just him sitting there while his father insulted him. He didn’t have a retort and he couldn’t think of any now. Easiest argument his father had ever won.

‘Then what?’ For a while his mind was blank after that, taking hours for pieces to return. He remembered falling over, then the room spinning and everything was blurry and he was dizzy. He thought he heard Yuna’s voice. He couldn’t remember what she was saying. Maybe he only thought he heard it. His stomach hurt, he remembered that, and it would explain the bandages. He remembered vomiting almost everywhere. Was that before or after he had fallen over?

Why had he hurt so badly? What had happened? Had his father tried to poison him?

Then why was he in the basement again? What was with the bandages and the stitches holding a slice in his stomach closed?

After a day of being left in the dark with a bowl of water he wasn’t sure if he was supposed to clean himself with or drink from and a roll of bandages, he came to the conclusion that he couldn’t remember his farther threatening sending him to the basement again, so there wasn’t any harm in getting up and leaving—which he soon found he was wrong about.

He never got far enough to see if his father would be angry at him, for it took nine tries to stand up, using the wall for support and even then his stomach hurt horribly, never having received anything for the pain or even against infection, and one of the stitches snapped in the process.

Slowly he made his way to the door, using the wall for support and learning an important anatomy lesson: the muscles in the legs as well as the lower stomach are used while walking. Laymen’s terms this meant walking was more difficult than before, even with the wound in his chest.

He approached the door, but stopped when he heard voices. They didn’t belong to his father—in fact, he had never heard them before.

Things did not look good.

Back