"Yunie?" Rikku asked, coming into the hut.

It was late evening now. Yuna couldn’t remember exactly when she’d returned. She remembered stadning and watching the spot Seymour had dissapeared into. She remembered sitting on the rock and crying.

She remembered replaying what he’d said in her head, she remembered his expression, his movements… she remembered how much it had hurt.

It had hurt. The last half-year hadn’t just been living in a new house. She couldn’t lie to herself and say that he didn’t mean anything that way to her.

Not anymore.

Before the marriage, yes. Before he came back… yes. She’d been attracted to him, but she’d never even bothered to understand him and made her own decisions about him, stupid as they had turned out to be. Hell, she could have just amrried him and threatened blackmail, there were enough people out there to be persuaded against Yevon with a sphere, even in the time of summoners.

Why did she have to jump at everything she thought was right? Why did it always have to result in just causing a bigger mess than before? Why did she even have to get involved in the world?

She didn’t have to be a summoner… she didn’t have to go after Vegnagun or into the farplane… she didn’t have to stop a war or heal holy grounds or…

"…I didn’t have to marry you…" she whispered to herself, holding the note. She’d carefully put all the flowers he’d left her on the nightstand, not crumpling a one. She’d left the knife there too, in the middle of the flowers. "…I chose to…"

"Yunie?" she heard from the doorway. She could hear several people entering her hut. "You weren’t at dinner or anything today. You feeling alright?"

"Wakka sends his regards, but he says he doesn’t want to get into this kind of conversation," Lulu said.

"Yeah, Auron said the same thing only not as politely," Paine said. "Where’s Seymour? He wig out again?"

"He said he hated me," Yuna said, straing at the floor. "He meant it."

"Yunie," Rikku exclaimed, patting her cousin on the back. "Why’d he do that? What happened."

"I found this on the bed this morning," Yuna said, handing Lulu the note.

"So it was either a rendezvous or a divorce," she said, passing the letter to Paine.

"And I take it you were still trying to convince him he didn’t really want to go for the divorce option," Paine said, handing the letter to Rikku.

"What’d he ask for?" Rikku asked.

"At first he just asked me to understand what he’d been through and he told me a lot of stuff that made me feel kinda spoiled at first, but then he got really creepy."

"Yuna, this is Seymour, what did you expect?" Paine asked.

"Nothing like this," Yuna answered. "He told me that when the he first became a Maester, they wanted to fix the way he looked; at first they wanted to cut his ears."

"You mean cut ‘em off?" Paine asked. "How would that make him look better?"

"No, just… trim them…"

"Like they do to cute little doggies?" Rikku asked. "But that’s still so mean!"

Yuna nodded. "His ears are pointed. He wears his hair over them because he hates the way they look."

"Did they?" Lulu asked.

"No, they decided that tattoos would detract from the rest of him enough instead."

"Then what’s that have to do with now?" Lulu asked.

"He gave me his knife and… asked me to do it to him."

"He’s lucky enough to avoid it the first time and now he asks for it?" Paine asks.

"Thing is… was… he wouldn’t have protested back then. If it made him look better, he thought people would treat him better… including me."

"From the looks of the knife on that dresser, things didn’t go the way he’d planned, did they?" Paine asked.

"I told him I wouldn’t and he got mad at me and stromed off," Yuna said.

"Maybe he wanted you to follow him," Lulu said.

"He said I’d regret it," Yuna said. "And he was pretty insistant on the fact that he hated me."

"If he liked getting hurt, why’s he want a divorce?" Paine asked.

"I don’t think the pain part of it was what he wanted," Lulu said.

"Then why would he ask for Yunie to do it?" Rikku asked.

"He said he was fine with somehting painful if it menat it was an improvement in the long-run," Yuna said.

"I thought that kind of kink didn’t make any sense," Paine said.

"Well, it would explain why he kept coming back for more," Rikku said.

"No, I’m pretty sure that was because he was pissed about bieng killed."

"This isn’t helping!" Yuna said. "He ran off and hates me and he’ll find his way onto the airship if he has to to get home and get a divorce."

"So, what exacctly did you do wrong, Yunie?" Rikku asked.

"I ruined his life, that’s what," Yuna said. "He thinks I just want to walk all over him. He’d rather go live alone forever than with me. He thinks falling in love is about getting the crap beaten out of you."

"And you didn’t get any," Paine said. "Pretty lousy honeymoon."

"What am I going to do?" Yuna asked.

"Find him," Rikku suggested. "You didn’t follow him, so he can’t be mad."

"Then what?" Yuna asked. "Just telling him I love him isn’t going to work."

"You could just give him wht he wanted," Piane siad, startling eeryon with her somment and how fast she was to speak it. "What? She’s a whitemage, it’s not like he’s going to lose a lot of blood—besides, if that’s what he wanted, maybe it’s the only thing out there that can convince him you didn’t intend to marry a doormat."

"I don’t want to," yuna siad.

"Good for you," Rikku said. "It’s mean to puppies, it’s mean to everyone. Even Seymour."

"Maybe you should ask him to understand," Lulu said.

"Yuna, you married him, so it’s your decision, but think about it. What if it’s what’ll make him happy?" Paine asked.

"What if he never comes back, though?" Yuna asked.

"We’re on an island Yunie," Rikku said. "And he can’t swim. He’ll have to come back sometime."

%%%

Yuna couldn’t sleep that night. Evey time she closed her eyes, she imagined what would happen if she’d done what he’d asked. She couldn’t bear it. She couldn’t change her mind, even now that he’d run away after she’d said ‘No.’ She couldn’t bear the thought of cutting off those long, tapering points on his ears. She couldn’t bear to think of drawing blood, or slicing off flesh. She couldn’t bear to think of him looing up at her and smiling wih bleeding ears and knowing sh’ed done it to him.

He hadn’t done anything wrong—in fact, he’d asked for it in the literal sense.

‘No,’ she thought. ‘No, I can’t. Because it’s not meant to. I don’t understand how oyu can ask for such a thing. I don’t understand how you could want such a thing… but tha’ts all you really wanted from me, isn’t it? To understand."

She loked up immediately, hearing something outside. She ran to the door, hoping… It was a dog. She sighed and the dog attmepted to get her attention—and more importantly affection—then left, finding her uninterested.

Why did she have to fail at so much?

%%%

She stayed in the doorway. She didn’t feel like doing anythign else, so she felt no point in moving from her vigil, as pointless as it seemed.

In the morning, people tried to cheer her up. Having no idea what had occurred, they cheerfully asked her if it was true that Seymour wanted a divorce. After seeing how much the subject upset her, though, they quickly left. The island began to wonder about Yuna and her relationship. No one liked how htings were going, and everyone began to question Seymour and their previous view of him.

By afternoon everyone was worried. No one had seen Seymour. A few went to look for him after they heard he’d left, but most stayed inside the viallge, not wanting to incur his wrath somehow.

By evening no one had found anything. No one wanted to tell Yuna, fearing her mood would get worse. She was still in the doorway.

Eventaully everyone went back to their own huts and to sleep.

Yuna was still waiting. Something in her told her to keep waiting, he’d come back soon, and then sh’ed make everything right again.

The moon was high in the sky, illuminating the fact that there was nothing there in the village but the long dead embers of the bonfire.

He wasn’t coming back. He’d spent two nights away from her. He was too proud to concede, or too set in his ways to believe there was any alternative or that sh’ed change her mind, or… or he was afraid of her.

She couldn’t fix that, could she? She couldn’t erase the fact that she’d killed him, that she’d though he was behind all the disasters when the farplane was thrown into chaos, that she didn’t understand… still didn’t.

Yuna sighed. Maybe it was time for her to go to bed. If he ever did return, it’d probably be to the shower.

Maybe the fayth would tell her what they wanted. She was all ears this time.

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