Final Fantasy Ten too Tired

“Yunie?” Rikku asked, coming into the hut.
It was late evening now. Yuna couldn’t remember exactly when she’d returned. She remembered standing and watching the spot Seymour had disappeared 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 married 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 havebe abe 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, staring 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 stormed off,” Yuna said.
“Maybe he wanted you to follow him,” Lulu said.
“He said I’d regret it,” Yuna said. “And he was pretty insistent 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 something painful if it meant 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 being 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 get home and get a divorce.”
“So, what exactly 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 what he wanted,” Piane said, startling everyone with her comment 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 said.
“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. Every 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 looking up at her and smiling with bleeding ears and knowing she’d done it to him.
He hadn’t done anything wrong—in fact, he’d asked for it in the literal sense.
“…If you are willing to give me pain to reprimand, are you not willing to give me pain to reward?”
‘No,’ she thought. ‘No, I can’t. Because it’s not meant to. I don’t understand how you can ask for such a thing. I don’t understand how you could want such a thing… but that’s all you really wanted from me, isn’t it? To understand.”
She looked up immediately, hearing something outside. She ran to the door, hoping… It was a dog. She sighed and the dog attempted 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 anything 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 things 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 fent ent to look for him after they heard he’d left, but most stayed inside the village, 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.
Eventually 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 she’d 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 she’d 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.

%%%

She was in her bed. There were flowers everywhere again. It was amazingly hot. She threw off the sheet, but it did nothing against the heat.
She got out of her bed. She was the only one in the hut.
There was very little light, but the place felt like an oven.
Strangely, she decided to wander outside.
The whole place was empty. It wasn’t just an empty village, it was empty. There was no villagSandSand had conquered all but a few trees.
She heard a shuffling noise, like that of cloth, and turned towards it.
Someone had been sitting by the side of her hut and was now standing. The man was dress in a cloak that slid off as he stood up, revealing that it was Seymour, though nothing she had ever expected to see from him.
As the hood slid off his head, it showed Seymour's blue hair, mutilated and matted with blood from cuts accidentally too deep from having chopped of all his shaped locks.
It kept sliding and took the shadows it cast over his face with it. Now Yuna was frozen to the spot. Not only had he poorly attempted a knife on his own ears, but his face was slashed repeatedly over the lines of his face, as if trying to hide them under the scars.
The cape slid away and he stood up fully and reached for her. She wanted to run. She wanted to scream. She couldn’t do anything but hold back the bile in her throat as she looked at his hands.
Each finger had been shortened to the last knuckle.
Every wound was dripping with blood.
She looked up to his eyes and the bile was gone, replaced with a cold she felt from the inside, challenging the intense heat.
He was smiling. He was reaching towards her not out to fear, but to embrace her. This was the full extent of what would make him human.
His mutilated hands were almost upon her. She didn’t want to embrace him, not like this. Not in blood, even if he felt so happy. Yet… how would he react to her fear, to her refusal now?
Is lips parted, blood trickling from all the slashes and cuts into them and at first she was afraid he’d kiss her.
No, no, he was speaking, thank the farplane.
“All I ever wanted…”
His hands grazed her lightly and another wound blossomed over his chest… over his heart.
There was strong gust of wind, threatening to throw her into his arms. His cape caught it and so did the rest of him. He vanished, no longer solid, just a figment blown away like dust on the wind. There weren’t even pyreflies.
……………………………………………………………………………………………..

Yuna woke up immediately, clinging to the covers.
That was it, she wasn’t going to stay here anymore. She had to find him. She had to have an answer. She had to know why he wanted to be human so badly.
The sky was dull and gray, neither light nor dark. The sun would be coming up soon. So far, no one had woken up. Even the dog had wandered beck to it’s home to sleep.
He wasn’t coming back. He was never coming back. Was up to her to find him, and she had to do it fast. She had to find these festering wounds he always pretended he never had before he was his mind was overtaken by the disease.
She took off running, not noticing that she still had the blanket in her hand or the tears that were forming in her eyes.
She just kept running, she didn’t know where to, but she’d run the whole of the island if she had to. She had to find him and as fast as she could. She wasn’t going to lose him to his own doubt.
She ran straight through the jungle, ignoring the roads. She began yelling his name as the foliage became denser and denser and the light began to grow brighter and brighter.
“Seymour!” she shouted. “Seymour?” She was running straight through the old ruins by the beach now. She’d have to turn around and let her desperation choose another direction, except—
She ran too far, too fast, too late.
Suddenly the ground under her was much lower and even more suddenly, she was on top of her quarry, who angrily confused being martyr for being prey.
She had no time to admire the slight alcove that would have been entirely hidden had she not fallen in it.
She pulled herself off of him and offered her hand as he stood up, but not only did he refuse, he backed away, expecting to be struck again.
“Seymour?” she asked, taking her hand away.
“Don’t touch me!” he said, backing away another step. She screwed up another few times and he’d end up in the water. “Why?” he asked, not looking at her, or much f anything else for that matter. “Why can’t even you allow me solitude when it’s all I want?”
She remembered, months ago, when he was suffering from a real wound, from something that could be seen on the flesh, he'’ told he was always alone unless he wanted to be. “Sometimes… sometimes you shouldn’t be alone… even if you think you should.”
“Why not?” he asked. “Why wouldn’t I be better off alone? Why… why did you have to be so stupid to run off a cliff? Why won’t you let me be what you want? Why is the only pain I am granted, that which I never ask for? Why can’t… why can’t the gentleness and honesty everyone else sees and receives only be kept from me?”
He tried to back away, but his strength was waning to fast. Only in death could he be mad at her. He stepped back, but his legs buckled underneath and he fell to the ground. He’d exposed himself to her back at the butterflies. He’d opened up his heart, he’d let his emotions pour out to her, emotions he’d kept locked away behind walls and locks and darkness in his mind, safe where they’d never hurt him. But he’d broken the dam now, and there was no way to stop the onslaught and he was about to drown. He didn’t now how to swim in water, and he didn’t know how to swim in his psyche.
He curled up, holding himself in a ball, his hands pulling at his long locks. “It was all I ever wanted from you Yuna.”
Seeing that his words were over, she rushed to him, wrapping the blanket she just no realized she had around him. “Why would you ever want to hurt yourself like that?”
“Because I want to be human,” he answered, not lifting his face from his blanketed ball. She hadn’t prevented pain from him. If anything, she’d given him a worse wound he seemed to refuse to heal from, and he was bleeding to death from it.
“Why?” she asked. Hadn’t he referred to the Guado as ‘his people?’ Hadn’t he disliked human things?
“Because that is what you want,” he answered.
“But I told you I loved you, and I still do,” she said. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you?” Couldn’t light cancel all darkness? Couldn’t love solve all unhappiness? Why not?
Yuna couldn’t help but smile as he lifted his head and released his hair, which sprang back up immediately.
“It means more than even I can understand, Y” he” he said, not flinching as she wiped his tears from his eyes, but obviously afraid that he’d lose an eye. “I have been trying to repay you for such affection since I knew you had truly spoken those words to me. But… lust and love are not the same thing. I… I came to the conclusion that I would never even touch someone in a way that admitted such physical desires, nor…nor would anyone touch me in that way. I have lived with that as a belief as strongly as my faith in Yevon. A thing like me is not allowed to think of or want such things and I believed it with all my heart. But you… you had such pity on me, you refused to keep me from a wonderland you’d create for me. You wanted me to be so naïve that I believed you could actually want some hideous thing like me. I have lived an entirely celibate life Yuna, I never allowed myself petty dreams of being with someone. If you insist on shattering all that, do not torture yourself by sharing a bed with a body you cannot even stand to look at. If you can grant me my dream of being loved, let me be your dream.”
“What dream would that be?” In all his poetry, she’d only learned he never thought he’d ever have sex and he’d thought that ever since he knew he wanted to.
“You want the ultimate, dream, Yuna. You want the dream of the fayth. You want someone human and beautiful, and perfect, and I wish I could be those things for you. I wanted so hard to be something someone could want physically, but I’ll never be more than a disgusting mutt.”
“Seymour, you’re not the only half-breed between us. I’m half Al-Behd, remember?”
“But you… You’re…”
“I’m what?”
“You’re beautiful.”
“Seymour,” she said, gently holding his face to look at hers. “When I was little, my father told me never to tell anyone that I was part Al Behd that didn’t already know it. Because I was different, I had to keep it a secret. So I promised myself that if I ever found someone who was different the way I was, I wouldn’t judge them for what they looked like. I’m sorry if I seem to have broken that promise. I don’t want you to think that you have to cut off what you are for me to want you.”
She was now holding his hands and he knew what she wanted. She wanted to take him back, back to people, back to power. She loved him, she wanted him—at least she had said she did—but…
Seymour tugged at his large hands in he small ones and she refused to let go. “Anyone can say kind words and mean them, Yuna.”
“What are you talking about?”
“I’ve never even allowed myself to think about such an act, and now that that’s what you want…. I don’t know what to do,” he said, looking away as his cheeks grew slightly red. It wasn’t even something he could talk about without wanting to run away. “I’m afraid of losing you to my own stupidity, but I’m also afraid of you, Yuna. All I’ve ever known to do is to fight back or to run away and neither is an acceptable answer to your advances.”
“So?”
“Between the two of us, I am not the only murderer.”
“You are more powerful than me and you have even taken my life, it was pure chance resulting from idiotic machinations that I came back. What you can and have done to me I cannot banish from my mind, Yuna. I’d rather you put that in the past.”
“What do you mean?” she asked, seeing the tears had stopped and hoping they’d stay that way. “I thought I had.”
“I am perfectly willing to be led by you in romance, but… but I do not think that it is too much to ask to no longer be treated like a pet to be kicked.” The tears were back now, and at first Yuna thought she’d lost him. “I would rather not attempt romance or coition at all, no matter how much or how long I have wanted to be allowed such things, if it means shame or humiliation.”
How obvious it should have been, she realized as he fell on hsobbsobbing. It wasn’t his plea so much as that he hadn’t the strength to hold back emotions so alien to him. To him, it hurt to feel anything so much as this. Emotions were a weakness, emotions trapped you, were used against you, hurt you in the end. He’d refused them for so long, it was like ice to one who’d spent decades in the desert.
In the bright dawn of the day, she let him. She’d only seen him as he was enjoying his short stay in true power, lacking anyone to truly fear. She’d known him only as a man who showed only as the emotions he wanted. Now things changed, but not all. Even before, traveling on the Mi’ihen highroad, her heartbeat sped looking at him. She had broken her promise. She had judged him for looks, but like herself, his mixing of foreign genes had given him attributes surpassing what either half alone could ever have produced. She’d never told anyone, not even herself.
Until now.
She waited for him to quiet his sobs as she cooed and comforted, letting him hug her and not letting it seemed she’d want to refuse. Then she told him, and herself. She kissed him, and for one it was a dream, for the other, it was more than a dream, any dream, or a dream she’d known and loved before this one.

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AN: Wow. Long story and a long time to update. I’m having a bit too much entropy in my schedule these days, but I’m sure I’ll get a few gs sgs settled soon.
Anyway, I wanted to alert anyone who bothers to read these things that there’s a contest pertaining to a story in this series. Eventually, there will be children between these two. The contest is to name or design them.
E-mail me or check my website if you’re interested.