FicWad

The sphere oscillo-finder had finally picked up Yuna's location and they were on their way to Bevelle. Since the trip would take several hours their group had scattered, Tidus, Auron, and Rikku heading off to take care of the Guado and fiends that had snuck on board and everyone else left to their own devices. After wandering aimlessly for a while, killing the occasional enemy she stumbled across, Lulu soon found herself walking up the stairs at the aft of the ship, toward the only sealed door she'd seen. She hesitated for a moment, knowing that if she went through that door and anyone found out about it she could easily be excommunicated for consorting with the Al Bhed when it wasn't necessary for the sake of the pilgrimage. But then, she thought wryly as she pulled the card out of her sleeve, it wasn't as though she'd done many things recently that wouldn't get her in trouble with the church in one way or another, so why stop there?

If she could figure out how to get in, that was. The small card wasn't like any key she'd ever seen before, it was just a smooth piece of metal with a strange pattern across its top and no notches or protrusions. The door itself had no keyhole in the normal spot, and there wasn't a panel next to it like the one Cid had used to open the bridge, so she had no idea what she was supposed to do.

As she frowned at the door the card was suddenly snatched out of her hand. She whirled around, already preparing to cast a low-level fire spell and singe whoever was trying to steal from her. The magic drained away uncast, however, at the sight of the small Al Bhed girl grinning up at her. "Rana myto!" she said before quickly sliding the card through a small slit hidden in the side of the door frame, causing the door to slide smoothly open.

"Nilla!" an upset sounding voice said from behind them. An Al Bhed woman dashed up to the from where she'd been standing near the elevator leading to the deck. "Fryd yna oui tuehk? Dryd'c y /Yevonite/!"

Not wanting to get the child in trouble, Lulu smiled apologetically at the woman, "I'm sorry, she was just helping me." The woman clearly didn't understand her so she reached back into her memory, trying to remember the scraps of Al Bhed Ginnem had had them both learn just in case they were ever in trouble with only an Al Bhed around to ask for help. "Cunno," she said slowly. "Where's... frana Cid?

"/Cid/?" The woman asked, clearly startled. She snatched the card back out of the hole and examined it closely, then stared at Lulu after she found whatever it was she was looking for. "Oui yna Cid'c fusyh?"

Lulu had no idea what that was supposed to mean, and just repeated again, "Frana? Frana Cid?" She just hoped that she was correctly remembering the word for 'where' and wasn't accidentally insulting their leader, or babbling nonsense and making them think she was mocking them.

Finally, after another long moment of staring, the woman handed back the card, tapped the left hand wall of the hallway revealed behind the door, then held up six fingers. When Lulu looked puzzled, she rolled her eyes and tried again. She pressed her hand against the wall, then pointed to the first door on that side and held up one finger, then the next door down before holding up two. The hall curved so that they couldn't see any more doors, but when the woman held up her six fingers again Lulu understood what she was trying to say.

"The sixth door on the left," she muttered to herself. She bowed to the woman and Nilla, holding herself back from moving her arms to form the prayer. "Dryhg," she said, feeling a bit stupid because she knew that she was messing up somewhere in her thanks, but couldn't remember where she was wrong, then turned to walk away.

She realized that she hadn't actually needed to ask for help when she found the sixth door down was wide open, Cid sitting right inside studying some papers. "I'm sorry," she said. "Are you busy now?"

"Door wouldn't be open if I was," he replied, scooting over to make room for her next to him on the couch. She paused briefly before taking the offered spot. Cid looked strangely satisfied, as though she'd just passed a test by getting so close instead of taking one of the other chairs in the room, then continued, "I was just lookin' over the reports the engineers made about the weapons systems on this baby. If what I've heard about the guardian of Bevelle is right, we're gonna need them." Lulu bit down hard on her lower lip and nodded, knowing that he was right although the thought didn't make her happy. He grinned in return. "Ain't ya gonna say something about how all destructive machina are evil, and we're all gonna get gobbled up by Sin for using it or some such nonsense?"

Lulu tilted her head and narrowed her eyes at him, not knowing whether he meant his words as harmless teasing or spiteful taunts, although if the later was the case she was somehow sure that his ire was toward the church in general and not she herself. "I would rather use your weapons and call Sin down upon us than leave Yuna in Seymour's hands," she said finally.

He laughed and slapped the papers down on the side table next to the sofa. "Good ta hear it. So," he said, leaning back and propping his feet up on a nearby chair, "what's your problem with the bastard? I figure you ain't against the two of them gettin' hitched because he's a Maester, or because of what happened to Home."

"Actually, that would be enough of a reason. Do you think I'd be sitting here now if I approved of what they did? The man is insane; he murdered his father, your people, and Yev-- and who knows how many other people in his quest for power, and now he's become an unsent as well. Considering what he was like in life, I can't imagine it will be long before he becomes a fiend, and we can not let Yuna be around him when that happens."

Cid's eyes sharpened, suddenly becoming intense as he looked at her. "Unsent, eh? And how exactly do you know this, if the bigwigs in Bevelle are apparently in the dark?"

"We killed him," she said simply, doing her best to keep her voice steady and not show him how much Seymour's death had affected her. "Tidus, Yuna, and I. It was... necessary. He killed his own father, he wished to use Yuna, he.. he didn't even show a hint of remorse when we confronted him about what he'd done. He--"

Cid clamped one of his large, calloused, hands onto her shoulder, startling her into silence, and said, "Hey. You don't need to justify yourself to me, ya know. The man's a murderer, y'all punished him, that's all I need to hear. I ain't a Yevonite."

"Ah, yes," she said with a nod, feeling unreasonably grateful for how untroubled he was by their crime. "I just hope that Yuna is actually trying to send him, and hasn't decided that giving the followers of Yevon something to celebrate is more important than punishing Seymour."

Cid raised an eyebrow, looking incredulous, "That's not likely, is it?"

"I can't say for sure. Yuna's thoughts tend to be very complicated; she judges her actions based on how they will effect... everyone in Spira other than herself, really. If she thinks that she can keep Seymour from harming anyone else when they're married, that the good she could have him do and the happiness they could bring is greater than the crimes he's committed, she would almost certainly go through with the marriage. I'm sure she'd send him eventually, but not until afterwards." Lulu sighed and rubbed her forehead, feeling pressure building into a headache behind it. Then she noticed how Cid was almost imperceptibly leaning forward, and the eager look in his eyes at hearing about Yuna and decided that she might as well continue. "The thing you need to understand about Yuna is that the defining event of her life was the day her father died. She saw that everyone was overjoyed by what happened, that no one seemed saddened that Braska's life was the cost of the Calm, and got the idea that someone's individual life is worth nothing compared to the happiness of the many. Or... no, that's not exactly right. It's the lives of those with a talent for summoning, like herself, that are worthless. Anyone else's life is sacrosanct, unless they choose to become guardians. Then," Lulu laughed bitterly to herself, "well, their lives are still worth more then her own, but she doesn't allow herself to comment when we go into danger."

"That's.... Hell, that's sick," Cid said, getting up to stomp across the room and pour himself a drink. After a moments thought he grabbed another glass and the bottle then set back down, handing the empty one to Lulu. She hesitated before raising the liquor he poured into it to her lips; Yevon forbid women from drinking alcohol aside from watered down wine on days of celebration, a rule the god had passed down to ensure no child would be born weakened due to an alcoholic mother. She realized, however, that by that point drinking would be the least of her sins and took a cautious sip, noticing as she did that Cid once again had that satisfied look on his face. When all it made her feel was a slight heat in her mouth she took a larger swig, then tried to ignore Cid's laughter when the burning in her throat made her cough. He pretended not to see the annoyed look she shot him, and continued speaking, "What sort've 'happy' life lets a little girl grow up thinkin' like that?"

"Don't you think we'd have tried to stop her from thinking that way if we'd known?" Lulu snapped back. "It's not as though that's a subject that comes up in conversation often. It wasn't until she became an apprentice summoner that we discovered how deeply ingrained those beliefs were. There are mental tests that one must take to become a summoner, that show whether or not they're capable of actually going through with the Final Summoning. The church feels that it would be a waste of time and resources to train a summoner unwilling to sacrifice themselves, you see."

"And li'l Yuna passed the tests with flyin' colors, right?"

"More than that, they showed that she was willing to die over much lesser causes than just the defeat of Sin. After that, well, Wakka, his brother Chappu, and I tried to convince her not to martyr herself at all, while the Church told her not to let herself die for anything less than the Final Summoning. It is, after all, just as much of a waste of time for them to train a Summoner who would let herself be killed the first time she came across someone in danger."

"And how well did that work?" Cid asked, taking another swig of his drink.

"Not as well as we would hope. Obviously, we were unable to convince her not to become a Summoner, but she did agree to protect her own life until Zanarkand unless she was doing something that she felt was worth the Calm being put off until someone else could defeat Sin." She closed her eyes, thinking hard for a moment, then smiled sadly at Cid, "I believe that when we fought Seymour in Macalania she was willing to die in that battle. That, more than anything, gives me hope that it is a sending she's trying to accomplish now. However, that also means that we need to get there before she starts, because if she's decided to place the sending over her life she could easily just go for it as soon as she gets close to him, no matter how much danger it puts her in."

"Than what--"

"Cid!" a voice interrupted from the door. They looked up and saw the woman who Lulu had spoken to earlier standing there with a panicked look on her face. "Lusa xielg! Drana'c y fiend eh dra cgo!"

"Fryd? Rammvena!" Cid exclaimed, leaping to his feet and starting for the door. Lulu followed, not understanding the words, but able to tell that something was wrong. She relaxed slightly when Cid smiled wryly at her and said, "Startin' to look like we're gonna be interrupted every time we try an' have a conversation, don't it?"

"Hm, perhaps," she replied, smiling back. The smile faded when she glanced up toward the Al Bhed woman in front of them, who had already walked through the door separating the residential area from the rest of the ship and was gesturing wildly towards the windows near her. "What's going on?"

"Apparently there's a fiend flyin' around outside. Hopefully it's just some Wasp that's flown too high, but Sina isn't usually the type to overreact over somethin' like that."

Lulu nodded, stepped through the doorway, glanced out the window, and blanched. "That is... definitely not a Wasp," she said, voice weak. "I believe that it's Evrae. I thought that she was a myth."

"Vilg," he spat, then dashed toward the stairs leading toward the bridge. "I was hoping the stories I'd heard were wrong. I gotta get to the front; see if I can get the weapons system to work. You see if you can find some of your friends, or one of those summoners, or /someone/, because if that thing attacks before we can get the missles to work someone's gotta be up there to fend it off. Okay?"

"Alright. We'll be ready when you need us."

"Good." And with that, Cid was gone.

Lulu glanced around at the Al Bhed in the hallway with her. Most of them were looking back at her with curious expressions, obviously wondering what she'd been doing with their leader, but it wasn't as though she knew the Al Bhed for 'We were just talking' to clear up any misunderstandings. After a long moment she started towards the door, planning of finding Tidus like Cid had asked, but before she'd taken more than a few steps he, Auron, and Rikku burst in through the door and ran up the stairs to the window without even acknowledging that she was there.

"Huh, now there's a rare sight," Auron said, watching the dragon flying outside with his normal impassive expression. She wanted to ask him why he hadn't mentioned it before if he knew that it was real, but kept her mouth closed when she realized that she herself was guilty of almost the same thing.

"Whoa, that's huge!" Tidus exclaimed, slack-jawed.

Rikku pressed her hands against the window, turning her head back and forth to try and take in as much of the huge dragon as she could. "What is that?" she asked.

"The guardian wyrm, Evrae," Lulu replied, finally making her presence known. Tidus gave her his full attention, obviously expecting her to give him a full lecture about the unfamiliar creature, as she'd done several times before on their journey when he hadn't known something. She was a tiny bit sorry that she had to disappoint him with how little information she had. "The great sacred beast--protector of Bevelle."

"The red carpet has teeth." Auron said, sounding almost amused.

Tidus seemed to have been thinking about what Lulu had said, because suddenly his expression became excited and he exclaimed, "Wait, that means we're close to Bevelle!"

She was about to answer when they were interrupted by Cid's voice over the intercom letting them know that they had to get on deck to fight. She felt a flash of annoyance that he apparently hadn't thought she'd have been able to find them on her own, but had to admit that so little time had passed that she still wouldn't have reached them if they were on the other side of the ship. She turned her attention back to Tidus, who seemed overly excited about the idea of fighting such a powerful fiend, just in time to hear him say he'd be taking her and Auron to the fight. "Rikku," he said, turning to the perky young girl, "you stay here and tell all these people to get somewhere safe, away from the windows. Then go wait by the elevator in case we need you, alright? I'm sure Kimahri and Wakka'll be here in a minute to keep you company."

Rikku grumbled under her breathe for a moment about just how good she thought their 'company' would be, then nodded, earning her a grin from Tidus. As Lulu and the others took off for the deck, she just hoped that the guardian beast wasn't as dangerous as she'd always heard.