Final Fantasy X: They Were the Dream Chasers
It was a nice day on the island, but Lulu's life was filled with perfect, beautiful sunny days, and she knew she took them for granted. There were always amazing sunrises and sunsets, hot sunshine and the cool breeze off the ocean to blow away most of the burn.
This day was different because the fallen summoner had come.
Lulu hadn't seen them, but Chappu and Luzzu had. Lulu never knew whether or not to believe them because they were always quick, too-loud voices and waving hands and amazing exaggerations on the best of days, anyway. Lulu was glad Wakka had grown out of that phase—he had been away, too, on the beach with his friends when the group had entered the village and gone toward the temple, and hadn't known anything, either. Then he had grinned at her and asked her why she cared so much. Wakka was convinced she would warm to their faith, but all Lulu knew was that it was full of holes. Lulu didn't like holes; she wanted explanations. It was something no one would ever share with her. The adults simply sent her to see the Crusaders, and she had learned as soon as she was old enough to start asking questions that the Crusaders didn't have any answers for her. When she could answer their questions better than they could answer hers, she knew it was a lost cause. The various priests that visited the temple said even more while revealing even less. So she had learned to listen to the adults around her, the whispers, the words not meant for the ears of Yevon. It was enough for now, but Lulu knew when she was older and stronger and not all too-long limbs and lack of grace that she would be told these things without having to eavesdrop. For now, her keen ears served her well.
Or they would if the village had been talking, whispering, anything—but the adults had gone strangely quiet, like a silence spell had been cast in order to muffle them. It was an uneasy quiet, heavy with guilt, when before it had been filled with the steady flow of gossip. Braska had been involved with an Al Bhed, she knew. Everyone in Spira knew, the shame and the whispers flowing because the man wanted to be a summoner. The village had balked when the news had been shared at bonfire night in the village announcements. Lulu had been sitting beside Wakka, who had muttered under his breath. She could remember Chappu's eyes across from her in the firelight, burning, not aimed at her but instead at his brother. Lulu didn't bother to involve herself in sibling arguments. It was too messy, both their tempers were as wild as the jungles on Besaid and twice as hot as the fire spell she had learned to cast when she had turned eleven.
The announcements had included Braska's companions, and Lulu had listened with the fire turning her hair into a warm shroud around her. She had watched the strands brush her bare legs, soft hot trails as she lowered her head and marveled. The summoner's guardians were an insane drunk and an excommunicated monk, the most unlikely group Spira had seen attempt to complete the pilgrimage in many a long year. Lulu had almost wanted to laugh at the time, because the voice that delivered the news did so with such derision it was clear the entire world thought this group was hopeless, a shame and a disgrace to the pilgrimage. Lulu had reserved judgment and wondered.
Now, weeks later on her tropical home, they had come. Lulu wondered if she would get to see them before they left. She didn't know how long they had been in the temple nor how long they might take and she worried she would be seen waiting and someone would hurry her along. She did want to wait, though, as the sun sank lower, wanted to see them, see what the world had already written off. The Calm was the Calm, whoever gave it to Spira—Lulu didn't know why so many others couldn't see this.
"Still waiting?"
Lulu turned to see Wakka, his hands curled around a ball, standing behind her. It did no good to lie to Wakka—he saw through most of her masks as easily as she saw through his. "Yes, I am."
Wakka shrugged, his hair falling into his eyes. He was growing it out—Lulu thought he looked a little ridiculous. "They're not gonna make it, yeah?"
"Shouldn't you be supportive of those following the path to the Calm?" Lulu asked, looking back toward the temple. "Why does everyone care so much? People shouldn't underestimate them."
"You heard what they are," Wakka said, and his voice told her it was clear he only knew what he was being told to know; the priests' words flowing out of his mouth like a chant. "How's a group like that gonna have the strength to defeat Sin? They're dreaming, Lu." His tone of voice reminded her of when she was a little girl and he used to tug on her braids and tease her about her failed attempts to get her dolls to dance.
"Maybe they are," she said, a little wistfully. "But at least they still have their dreams." He didn't respond, and she didn't look back at him to prompt, because she didn't want to explain it if he didn't understand. It was the dream of the Calm, seeing so many summoners pass through their tiny village—how easily her people lost that dream in judgment. She didn't understand Wakka's feelings, but she didn't understand her own, either. She was defensive of men following the faith she had already started to question. Not for the first time, she wished she was older, wiser, so she could talk to someone about it and feel like she was being listened to. So she could be heard.
Lulu waited, with Wakka, and then alone, until the island was covered in the moaning of night crawlers and inky darkness; the group didn't emerge.
------------
It wasn't exactly disappointment Lulu felt when she woke in her hut the next morning, and she couldn't describe it. It was a feeling she didn't know the word for yet, and it was frustrating to not know. She lay on her stomach and tugged her fingers through her hair, untangling the strands as she listened to the village wake up through the cloth she had strung across the door. Her hut was small, but it was hers, far away from the hut she had shared with Wakka and Chappu for a very long time on the other side of the village. She had demanded her own space from their guardians and it had worked. She was changing, slowly, finally, and she knew soon she would fit into her long legs and mass of hair she couldn't seem to manage. She would be able to look confident instead of like a child, and she smiled with the knowledge as she climbed out of her pallet.
Village mornings never changed. There was always the smell of the same sweet breakfast fruits, the hum of deep voices before the men left for fishing or hunting, and bustling activity in the main circle. Lulu always avoided it, preferring to head to the beach and watch the water before the boys came and ruined its serenity by splashing and kicking up sand.
She walked alone, fiends no match for her spells anymore. She was getting stronger, day by day, even if Wakka did make fun of her and her moogle when they danced. It had been a joy to finally be able to control her moogle enough to send it behind Wakka one day for a surprise attack. She knew his new teammates wouldn't let him forget it for a long time. She was tired of his teasing, tired of her only friends being boys who always laughed at the wrong moments and never understood her moods nor bothered to try. She was stuck in the place between being one of them and being a woman and it was all awkward silences and belated realizations, and Lulu was ready for it to end.
As she made her way down the last path before the beach, a rustling caught her attention and she froze, hugging her moogle to her woefully small chest. It wasn't that she was scared of battle and her spells had long since stopped failing her, but it was battle. Lulu knew the rest of her life would be littered with fiends and knew she should overcome this initial fear. It still hadn't stopped being scary, facing down those fiends with their glowing eyes—it was a hollow feeling in her stomach each time. She would almost welcome butterflies, instead of that emptiness.
"Focus on the enemy, Lulu," she said, and took her stance, the earth crackling under her feet. What came out of the bushes was not a fiend, however, and Lulu almost dropped her moogle.
"Whoa, a kid," the man said, swatting a leaf out of his eye. "Hey there, pipsqueak."
Lulu blinked and pulled her moogle close to her again. It was one of them, one of the guardians of the fallen summoner—it had to be. He was huge. The muscles normal people never bothered with stood out on him in definition, damp with sweat from what was promising to be a scorching day. Lulu just stared at him, shocked eyes meeting his, which were full of—
"Leave me, I said!" The voice from the beach was angry and loud, causing several birds to jump from their branches above Lulu's head in surprise.
The man in front of her grinned, but it didn't reach his eyes. "Auron's grumpy in the morning."
The man on the beach was the other guardian. If they were on the beach, where in the world was their summoner, Lulu wondered. She opened her mouth to speak when there was more movement behind her.
"Auron is only grumpy when bothered. Jecht, you know this by now." The voice was smooth and calm and Lulu froze, trapped between the scary-looking guardian with haunted eyes and the summoner who had been given no reception for obtaining the aeon.
She didn't know why she assumed he had; it wasn't logical, there was no proof.
"Yeah, well, he threatened me with his sword again," Jecht said. Lulu turned the name around in her head as the man behind her walked around, robes brushing her side as he passed.
"He practices alone as he always has," Braska said. Lulu's eyes opened wide at the sight of him. He was every inch a summoner, the folds of his robe draping all the way to the ground, the head dress a marvel. Her neck would get tired holding it up and not for the first time she wondered if part of the summoners' journey was looking a certain way, even if it was tiring, so the world would be properly impressed. His face was tired and his eyes sad and Lulu knew even without proof Valefor had come to him.
"He doesn't gotta spoil everybody's day being a grouch," Jecht said. "Are we leaving? These people are worse than the other ones. What's the big idea treating us so bad?" He crossed his arms and put on a surly look and it reminded Lulu of Wakka when he didn't get his way or lost during practice games.
"Hello," Braska said and Lulu looked back at him to see that he was addressing her.
She swallowed and went to the familiar greeting, moogle falling to the ground and hair draping into her eyes as she bowed. "Lord Summoner," she began, "I am sorry for disturbing you."
"Nonsense. This is your island and your home," he said as Lulu bent to pick up her moogle and rose slowly. "You have a beautiful village here."
"Thank you," Lulu replied, touched. Other summoners had been more bored with Besaid and its simplicity. It wasn't Bevelle with its grand buildings or even Kilika, with its temple tucked into the jungle.
"Don't let us disturb your morning," Braska said, already moving away. Lulu didn't miss his hand on Jecht's shoulder nor the response to its placement there. "Jecht, come and leave Auron to himself for now."
"I wouldn't go out there," Jecht warned her as he and Lord Braska headed back up the path. "He's got the grumps this morning worse than ever." He turned away as Lord Braska spoke softly to him—words Lulu couldn't hear. She watched them head up the path. Their colors flowed and then disappeared into the green—the cool and the warm, the calm and the vivid.
Lulu looked down the path to the beach. Jecht had warned her away from the other guardian—what kind of pilgrimage was theirs if the guardians were fighting? She thought that if she ever went on a pilgrimage, she wouldn't allow other guardians to fight. It wasn't the way to support the summoner. Even with the warning, she found her feet scooting over the ground, from leaves and brush to bumpy sand. She could already hear the waves, gentle music on the shore. Lulu dreamed of controlling the water and bending that element to her will. Soon, she thought as she walked from beneath the trees and closer to the blue. She didn't see signs of anyone at all. It was a big beach, she thought, surely the guardian couldn't—
"Jecht, I told you to leave me," a wearied voice said.
For the second time that morning her moogle hit the ground. Lulu was disappointed in herself; she wasn't normally this jumpy. All the surprise meetings had alarmed her. "He has," she replied, and managed to keep her face calm as she looked at the other guardian. The monk cut off from Yevon, Lulu remembered. She wondered how that felt and why he still followed the path of the faith that had spurned him.
It was rude to stare and Lulu had been told not to do this over and over, but she didn't know how people expected to know anything if they averted their eyes. The man before her, leaning against one of the cliffs, was beautiful. She didn't have other words for it. He stood facing the water; his skin was slick with sweat from what Lulu gathered had been a morning workout. His arms were bare, the top of his long coat hanging from his waist. She kept her eyes on his face as he turned toward her, dropping his huge sword off his shoulder.
"It is not safe for children here," he said as he looked down at her.
"I'm twelve," Lulu countered.
"As I said," he replied, and Lulu bristled.
"I'm a mage," she said, "and I know a fire spell. I can take care of myself."
"You dropped your doll," Auron said, gesturing to the ground by her feet. "You were saying?"
Lulu angrily scooped her moogle up from the ground and dusted him off. "It's a tool," she said. "Don't you know anything about magic?" She didn't like it when anyone teased her over her moogle—the other kids on the island had finally gotten bored with it. Only two knew why she had chosen it and she knew they would keep that secret.
"If you're a mage, you know how important support is," Auron said. "Where's your support when your black magic fails you?"
"If you're a guardian, you know how important guarding your summoner is," Lulu said, ignoring his question. "Why do you leave him if you think it's so unsafe?"
Auron stared at her. "Are you always this rude to your elders?"
Lulu stood up straight. "No." Something about the man somehow rubbed her the wrong way; she never lost her temper like she just had to anyone besides Wakka; he usually deserved it when she did. This was a guardian and he wasn't from Besaid. He had no way of knowing her strengths or weaknesses. "I'm sorry for being rude, Sir Auron." She didn't move to the prayer—he had still been rude about her moogle.
He raised an eyebrow. "You're not like the others," he said. Lulu heard the caution in his voice.
She didn't take her eyes off his, dark and piercing, as she spoke. "I'm my own person."
"Spoken like a true—" he stopped and she almost caught a hint of a smile. "You claim to be unique. You're still innocent."
"I am unique," Lulu said. "And Sir Jecht was right, you're grumpy." She filed away the mental image of this man in the morning sun, completely unlike his companions but at the same time a mix of both of them. She stared as he hefted his huge sword and faced her fully.
"What's your name?" he asked as Lulu watched him shrug back into his red coat.
"Lulu," she said, hating the little-girl moniker even as it passed her lips. She felt guilty for it as it was the only gift she still had from long-dead parents she only remembered in snatches of blurry memories.
"Do your parents know you're wandering the island alone?" Auron asked. "Mage or not, you have no support while learning. Your teacher surely mentioned the importance of this."
"The fiends aren't that dangerous," she said, even as she knew he was right it just bugged her he could be so smug. "And I don't have parents." She didn't bother adding on what would already be assumed by her saying it. Sin had taken them—the monster that the man in front of her was going to help kill. Lulu sometimes dreamed of going on the pilgrimage with her own summoner, fighting Sin with the strongest of magic she was going to learn. She thought that even if she died she would have taken revenge for her stolen family; Sin's life for her parents' and Wakka and Chappu's parents'. It was a dream, she was told, and Chappu cried when she talked about it, because he didn't want to lose anyone else. Lulu didn't talk about it anymore.
"I'm sorry for your loss," Auron said.
"It's fine," Lulu said, staring up at him. "You didn't answer my question, Sir Auron." He looked at her curiously and she repeated, "why do you leave your summoner alone on an island where he is unwelcome?"
"Do you find him a shame and a disgrace as well?" Auron asked her, his voice bitter. "He is the strongest man I know—nothing on this island matches him in skill."
"No one on this island matches me in my skill," Lulu challenged. "But it's not safe for me be alone?" She stepped back. "Lord Summoner has more to fear than fiends here—you would dishonor him if someone saw him without you."
Auron stared at her hard. "You speak freely for a child."
"I'm not just a child," Lulu said. "I can think."
"You can think," Auron said, "in the spiraling pattern of one too young to understand the pilgrimage."
"I know that summoners gain their strength from the support and love of their guardians," she said, staring up at him. His gaze made her nervous, made her feel all the awkwardness in her limbs, how her hair was wild around her because she couldn't get it to behave. They watched each other for a few seconds, birds of the morning making noise in the brush, the waves on the sand a steady rhythm.
Auron chuckled. "I see." Lulu clutched the arm of her moogle tighter as Auron nodded. "Perhaps you are right."
"Of course," Lulu said, holding her chin up. Auron stared at her again, almost questioning, and then to her surprise walked toward her, flowing reds brushing her bare arm as he stopped beside her. He looked ahead as he spoke, not meeting her upturned gaze.
"You're very clever," he said quietly. "For a child." Lulu's retort was on the edge of her tongue, but he was already striding away, steps confident and back straight, into the center of the island, leaving Lulu alone on the quiet beach.
------------
Lulu's morning alone on the beach didn't last long—she was too annoyed at having been brushed off to enjoy it like she usually did. She headed back to the village early enough that she even missed the blitzball players on their way to the water to practice.
The early morning activity had died down enough for Lulu to locate Wakka and Chappu, sitting outside their tent having breakfast. Wakka's face was cloudy and Chappu's shoulders tense, which only meant bad things for their moods and hers as well. She headed over, anyway.
"Hey, Lu," Wakka greeted her. "How was the beach?"
Lulu heard the annoyance in his voice, but didn't bother pointing it out. Wakka tried his best not to take his moods out on other people, she knew. "The guardians were there," she said.
Chappu's head snapped up and Wakka's eyes narrowed. "You saw them?" Wakka asked.
"We did, too!" Chappu said, smiling at her. "All of them just came into the village and went to talk to the priests in the temple."
"I saw them, yes." Lulu didn't bother to sit down. "They weren't what I expected."
"Did you talk to them?" Chappu asked, voice pleased.
"Aw, Lu, please tell me you didn't," Wakka groaned. "I saw one of them forget the prayer—his summoner had to remind him, yeah?" Wakka looked toward the empty temple steps. "I mean, you heard about him. He says he's from Zanarkand."
Lulu shrugged. "It's just a prayer, Wakka."
"Doesn't explain how he's nuts," he muttered.
"Maybe Sin touched him," Chappu said quietly. Wakka jerked his head towards his brother and stared. Chappu looked back, eyes hard. "Well, it could've happened!"
"He's just a drunk," Wakka said, voice sour. Lulu gaped at him.
"Keep your voice down," she warned, her voice low. "If they're making a mockery of the teachings, then you're worse." She watched Wakka's face pale, and beside her leg, Chappu shifted.
"They just want to bring the Calm," he said. "Lu's right, Wakka." Lulu was surprised; normally Chappu wouldn't argue with Wakka because it never ended well.
"How can you both defend them?" Wakka asked. "You both know what they did, yeah? Taking up with an Al Bhed! One of them has been excommunicated, you know?" His eyes were angry. "You can both just excuse it?"
"The teachings aren't something that can be taken away," Lulu said. She shook her head. "Would you stop following them just because you were told you couldn't?"
Wakka shoved away from them and stood, dusting off his pants. "That's different," he said. He shook his head. "They've ignored the teachings—why should they get to keep following them after ignoring them?" His voice was getting louder and louder and more upset. Lulu could see some of the adults nearby looking at them carefully.
"Just shut up, Wakka," Chappu hissed suddenly. "Maybe you care who gets rids of Sin, but other people don't. Unless you want to face what they're facing, you can't judge them. That's against the teachings and you're using those to say they're not worthy. Stop it!"
All three of them fell silent. Lulu stared in shocked at Chappu, glaring at Wakka, his hands shaking. Wakka's face wasn't angry anymore, just shocked and hurt. His gaze shifted to Lulu before he stood slowly, looked once more at them and took off toward the jungle. Lulu took a step to go after him, but felt Chappu's hand on her ankle.
"Don't," he said.
"Where did that come from?" Lulu asked, looking back down.
"I've been listening to him for weeks; it's old," Chappu complained. "He thinks he's helping me learn the teachings by talking about how to follow them right and stuff, but he's just full of hot air."
"You need to go after him and apologize," Lulu said, torn between worry over Wakka's feelings, even when he was being a jerk, and Chappu's. She nudged him with her foot. "Did you hear me?"
"I'll let him sulk awhile; it'll be good for him. Look," he said, his attention focused away. Lulu followed his gaze to see Braska and his guardians coming down the temple steps. She didn't miss the differences. Braska's movements looking almost effortless, Jecht's lazy stroll, and Auron's entire body poised to move in the next second, even though he looked relaxed.
"They don't match," Chappu murmured. "Did you notice that?"
Lulu nodded. "Yes." She watched the priest that had followed them out watch them. He didn't look happy. "Why are they walking over that way?" she asked. "There's nothing over there."
Chappu stood and grinned. "I know how we can find out." He grabbed her wrist and started tugging her toward the hut they had walked behind.
"That's eavesdropping," Lulu said, but she couldn't manage to sound disinterested enough. Chappu only grinned at her as they crossed the village.
"The teachings don't say anything about eavesdropping," Chappu said. He gave her a haggard look. "And I should know, right? I, of all people, should know."
Lulu couldn't keep her lips from twitching as they crossed into the grass and curved around the side of the hut the group had disappeared behind. "Just because it's not in the teachings—"
"Yeah, yeah," Chappu muttered. "It's wrong to listen in on private conversations, but come on, Lu!" He looked at her seriously, hand tightening on her wrist. "Don't you feel it with them? They're—" he paused. "I'm not the only one, right?"
Lulu shook her head and thought about smiles that never made it to sad eyes. "No."
"Right," he said, jaw set, and pulled her farther behind the hut, stepping carefully in the high grass. They crouched on the edge of the curve of the hut when Chappu pointed toward Braska's distinctive headdress. He pulled Lulu down to the ground with him, the weeds tickling her legs through her skirt.
"—probably the only excitement these people will get," Jecht said, as Chappu looked back at Lulu and winked.
"These people have seen Valefor many times," Braska said. "This is the beginning of the pilgrimage for most, as I've said."
"They have asked us not to," Auron said, voice angry. "It isn't because we didn't come here first. Summoning Valefor here is not a tradition only for those who become summoners at this temple."
Lulu heard the weariness in Braska's voice as he said, "No, it is not."
"Man, we can't let them treat us this way," Jecht said. "I say we go for it." It was laid-back, a slow drawl, but Lulu didn't miss the hardness under the words, even worse than Auron's anger.
"We will stand with you," Auron said, standing from his position so Lulu could see him. "You won't stand alone in the circle."
Beside her, Chappu shifted. "What are they going to do?" he whispered even as Lulu heard Braska give his assent.
Lulu frowned. "I think they're going to summon the aeon."
Chappu flushed, eyes flashing. "The temple asked them not to?" His face was hard. "That's not right."
"Sometimes I wonder what is right about Yevon," Lulu murmured. She thought back to the last summoner that had come; she and her guardians had all been young. Lulu hadn't forgotten how she had been treated her entire visit, like an honored guest. Lulu watched them head back around the hut, but she and Chappu stayed in their place for a moment.
"He's going to summon the aeon against the wishes of the temple," Chappu said, eyes bright. "He's going to challenge them."
Lulu shook her head as they stood and headed back around the hut. "No," she said. "They're going to challenge them." The distinction wasn't lost on her as she stepped out of the itchy grass, Chappu behind her. She froze as a shadow fell in front of them in the dirt and she heard Chappu's sharp intake of breath behind her.
"It's not nice to eavesdrop," Auron said, blocking their path back into the village. Lulu looked up at him, but instead of anger, she met an unreadable gaze. She debated for a moment and then realized it had been foolish to think that a guardian would not be aware of all potential dangers around his summoner. She shrugged.
"How else will we learn anything else worth knowing?" Lulu asked, standing straight. Chappu touched her shoulder in support.
Auron smiled, carefully. It made his whole face change, she thought. He stared down at them, cautious smile in place. "You still need to learn how to ask the right questions," he said. "But it seems you've already learned the art of listening." He nodded at Lulu's smile. "I hope you remember your advice to me one day, young guardian." He paused and shifted on his feet. "It was helpful."
"For a child's?" Lulu challenged, head held high not only because Auron was so tall.
Auron's lips quirked. "For a young woman's," he murmured. Lulu heard Jecht's voice, loud and impatient over the murmur from the crowd gathering in the center of the village, calling Auron to them. Auron spared her one last searching look, then turned and headed toward his party.
Chappu nudged her. "How come he called you that? Young guardian?"
Lulu frowned thoughtfully. "I'm not sure," she said. But as she watched Auron take the Lord Summoner's side, Jecht on the other, flanking Braska inside the circle as he raised his staff in the air, Lulu thought she might understand, after all.
