FicWad

The fire was almost out, but no one had fallen asleep yet. How could they, with Zanarkand stretched out below them? No one spoke, no one moved, even breathing too deeply felt like it would be taboo with the bleak mood that had settled over the group as the night passed them by.

Finally, unable to stand there not being anything to listen to but her thoughts any longer, Lulu pushed herself to her feet and walked away from the group, settling down again with the remains of a wall between her and the rest of them. A few of them looked up at her as she moved, but none of them asked what she was doing.

"Cid, are you there?" she asked quietly into the radio. "Are you awake?"

"Ain't got not time to sleep now, do I?" he replied a moment later. "Been in too damn much of a rush."

Lulu sighed, wrapping her free arm around her waist. "I am... I'm afraid that you won't need to rush any longer?"

"What's that supposed to mean?" he asked, but Lulu could tell from his tone that he suspected the truth.

"We reached Zanarkand, Cid. Tomorrow Yuna will receive the final aeon. You may still have a chance to meet her, but it'll be too late for you to have any chance of stopping her."

"Tysh ed!" he exclaimed, loud enough that even dampened by the radio and the distance between them his words reached her at a shout. She had to peek around the wall to make sure none of the others had heard it as he continued, "I knew I should've gone to see her when we had her in the sanctum. If I just hadn't been..."

Lulu waited a moment to see if he would continue on his own, before deciding to probe for more information. "If you hadn't been what, Cid?"

His voice was tired as he said, "If I hadn't been tryin' to be a hero for her. I didn't want her to see me as nothin' more than a kidnapper the first time we met. I wanted to be able to go up to her an' say 'Hey there, I'm your uncle Cid, and my men and I just blew Sin to pieces so you don't have'ta worry about that ever again.' Damn cowardly of me, I know, but I reckon most people'd've felt the same way."

"...I believe you're right," she said, leaving the thought if they were the sort who would kidnap a family member in the first place unsaid. "But it's a bit late for regrets."

"We'll be there by nightfall tomorrow. Ain't there anything you can do to hold them back that long?"

"I'm sorry, Cid. You know that I would if I could. I don't want to see her die any more than you do." Even less, because she had been raised beside Yuna since she was eleven, while he hadn't even met her yet. But Lulu wouldn't say that to him either.

He said nothing in return, and Lulu looked out over Zanarkand, content with the silence now that this one, at least, was breakable. After a few minutes she murmured, mostly to herself, "It's so strange..."

"Eh? What is?"

"Oh, this place," she replied, pulling her mind out of the absent state it had fallen into.

"Yeah? Never been there m'self. What's so weird about it?" he asked, sounding curious.

She laughed at herself softly as she answered, "Absolutely nothing, aside from the city seeming to attract pyreflies almost as well as the Moonflow."

"You know, y'ain't makin' much sense here, Miss Guardian," he said, seemingly beginning to lose patience with her.

"I've just always imagined that when I saw Zanarkand, it would feel holy, somehow. That I would be able to tell just by looking that it was the most sacred place in the world."

"Yeah? And what's it like instead?"

"Like any ruins in Spira, just with more of them left intact then you see most places. I don't believe that it's even as whole as the city under the Moonflow would be, if it were ever to rise to the surface once more."

"Bit of a letdown?"

"I suppose you could call it that. I certainly didn't expect that I'd find myself sitting beside a wall that could have been from the rubble on Besaid I used to play on as a child."

"Well, you've gotta remember that whatever y'all believe happened there way back when, it was just a city. Just like any other you see around from back then."

"I understand that. But it's one thing to know it logically, and another to really see and recognize it."

"I guess I can kind've get that. 'Course, it's never been nothin' but just a city to me, so I can't totally understand what it'd be like."

"Mm." She glanced over her at the others once more. " I think that I'm glad that it's just a city to you, Cid."

"Huh?" He sounded honestly baffled.

"I don't believe that I could talk about this with anyone who felt the same way as I do." She rested her cheek against the wall, and quietly admitted, "Not just about this, but about everything that's been happening lately. It would be too... too much to talk with someone who was feeling the same way. We'd just end up feeding each other fears and misgivings, I think. Or, even worse, they might not feel the same way at all. But, with you, I know that I can just talk, and I don't need to worry about your ever being too blinded by Yevon to listen to anything against the church, or feeling too betrayed yourself to really listen to someone else's concerns." She smiled slightly, even though she knew he couldn't seen it. "Too outraged by the church to believe anything good about them, perhaps, but, then, sometimes a little outrage may be a good thing. At least it's better than blind obeisance, I can see now."

"Yeah, well..." he said, the words sounding awkward, as if he couldn't quite believe he was saying them. "I kinda like talkin' like this too. Ya give me a lot to think on about what it's like on your side've things that I never would've before, anyway. Nothin' that makes me think any better of your church, but maybe a little better of some've the people in it."

"It's all right. I wouldn't believe you if you ever said you did like the church more than before, Cid," she said, a little amazed even as she did it that she could feel like teasing with everything that was happening.

"Good thing, that, or you'd be in for a lifetime've disappointment waitin' for it to happen." He coughed, and she thought that she might have heard a laugh behind it. "Anyway... I'll be seein' you tomorrow, okay? Whatever happens with Yuna, I'll meet y'all before you've left the city."

"Then, I will be watching the skies for you. Goodnight, Cid." She paused for a moment, then added, "I promise that I won't let Yuna leave without meeting you, if you're a little later than you think."

"I won't be. No chance." He sounded so certain that she couldn't doubt him. "Night, Lulu."

And then the radio went quiet.