Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Dreams Come True ❯ Farplane ( Chapter 7 )

A long time ago...I dreamt about blitzball.

Being better than my father.

Constantly.

Then, some time later, I spent my dreams dreaming about going home.

Eventually those dreams changed into dreams of defeating Sin.

And soon...all I dreamt about was Yuna. Those dreams lasted awhile.

Yet those dreams, too, changed. They transformed themselves into one constant, longing wish:

Don't take me from her. Please. I don't care if I never see Zanarkand again, just let me stay with her.

Now, though, I dreamt about the hellish part after the dreams stopped.

Farplane.

It was essentially nothing, just like me...just earthly stones, earthly water, earthly life.

We were all beyond that.

I was awake.

Not alive...but awake. I could think and feel and god, the agony...I could see others' thoughts, feel their feelings.

There was so much pain.

I could sense the presences of those killed by Sin two weeks ago, and those killed by Sin a thousand years ago...there were some who still wouldn't accept the fact that they had passed into the Farplane. Those souls - pyreflies, really; that's all a soul was, just a pyrefly - felt nothing but confusion, panic. The ones who'd come to terms with it were simply watchful. Souls who still had loved ones lingered close to the realm's earthly entrance, waiting; sometimes those loved ones came, sometimes they didn't.

No matter how long they'd been here, they felt pain.

Each day was an eternity; there was plenty of time. I learned that one could focus and reach out to another particular pyrefly. Altogether too soon, I found so many people I knew so well. People who died in Operation Mi'ihen...and friends who died that final night in Zanarkand, when I'd been stolen away from my fate.

Yes, I was supposed to die then.

Supposed to.

It only proves that you can only run from fate for so long before it catches up to you.

Fate makes you pay for evading it.

The others couldn't speak, and neither could I. But they knew me, and I sensed their happiness when they felt me. One of them - my best friend Kija, back in the old Zanarkand - managed to relay a question to me in feeling, and it was as if she was standing there before me, arms crossed in that impatient way of hers:

And what took *you* so long?

I waited for you, but you never came.

Not for a thousand years.

What do you have to say for yourself, hmm?

I couldn't tell her why...but I could show her. That one took days of telling - it had to be done through emotion and memory, but I told her my story. Pyreflies did not sleep, they did not hunger, they just...existed. There were no distractions.

After I finished, I sensed that the soul I called Kija seemed angry.

You don't belong here.

She sent me a memory along with that statement - a view from high atop the Zanarkand blitzball stadium, watching the sphere pool collapse. So she had been in those stands, there to cheer me on that night.

I watched as she showed me her attempt - and her fatal failure - to escape the chaos that ensued with Sin's first appearance.

Life is unfair. So is death.

We communicated for awhile longer. I had been idly reaching for another presence while she and I talked, and once I found it, she silenced herself.

I hadn't expected to feel more than one presence, reaching out to someone who hadn't walked the earth for more than a thousand years. But surely enough, sensing my mother's presence, I sensed Jecht's as well. Even in death, the two were inseparable.

Her shock and surprise were painful. Her sorrow was even more so. But...she seemed happy to see me too. That was a comfort, but only a slight one.

She'd already been told Jecht's side of the story, so once again, I told mine. Jecht heard it too, but he didn't send me any kind of reaction. He knew somehow to keep quiet.

It was in the middle of my story that I learned why some of these souls never stopped feeling their pain, never stopped this howling agony of the heart. A new but not unfamiliar presence made itself known to me - but it was different this time. Not a pyrefly. Something close...a resemblance in the soul. But very different. Vibrant.

Alive?

Why would something alive make its presence felt in this realm of death?

People came here all the time, yet no one...no one ever had a presence to any pyrefly. They were just *there,* creatures of a different realm existing for a short time in our own. Sometimes they would summon up an image of the physical body one of the pyreflies once held, but it meant nothing to us. They mattered nothing.

I reached out to this new soul, investigating - at once I found my answer.

Yes, this soul's body was alive. The soul, too, was persistent in its vitality...but...there was a feeling of misery coming from it that drowned out any I'd sensed before.

*What is this?*

I peered closer, shocked. This was new. This...how?

The soul was dying. The body was dying - more slowly, but it too was ebbing away.

How? A soul could not *die,* it just existed, eternally...even when the body had fallen away.

With a promise of return, I broke the link of concentration with my mother and headed for the earthly entrance to the Farplane.

The sight of it, unclear and yet sharp as crystal, taught me emotional torture all over again.

Yuna and Lulu were unmistakable. Just the recognition of their names flooded me with memory.

Yuna, scrabbling forward towards the edge, while Lulu struggled to hold her back. Her face...covered in tears, the curves of her soft lips - even now, the memory of them was clear - pulled back into an involuntary grimace of anguish. Startled, pained, I tried to send her some feeling of comfort, but she wouldn't hear me. Breaking away from Lulu, she surged for the edge again, only to be recaptured. Yuna's entire body was shaking, wracked with deep sobs.

Lulu turned her around, her face both angry and deeply worried. She spoke sharp words to Yuna, words that were mute to me. I could read Yuna's lips as she spoke her reply, trembling.

Let me die.

Just let me die.

I want to die, Lulu, just let me...

At that she stopped her struggling and crumbled into Lulu's arms, her sobbing redoubled. Lulu gave the best comfort she could, a tight embrace and words I couldn't decipher. A meek comfort was being sent from my mother's spirit - I ignored it reluctantly, not wanting to be soothed. Directly after it came a sense of helplessness; I understood. She could not do anything for me. I couldn't do anything to help Yuna anymore. I could only...watch...

I sent a feeling of empathy out to all those whose spirits were still crying.

I understand now.

This is ... torture...

The collective pain lessened marginally at the consolation. They were all aware of this half-soul's presence as well, though I'd chosen to ignore the mass confusion and curiosity. In little surges and sparks, different presences sent little solacing feelings, including my mother, again; Jecht, too. I didn't bother to refuse them.

Instead I accepted them, let them in, but didn't bother to soak them up. I reached out farther, prying into the dying soul Yuna - what was in her heart?

I got a simple statement, echoing constantly.

There is nothing left to live for. I am empty.

I cannot bear life.

Not without him.

I was getting a strange feeling from my mother again. One that I realized after a moment was just simple recognition...

She knew what Yuna was feeling. She knew exactly.

So that's how it was.

...When a lovebird dies...

*****

My eyes snapped open as my heart thudded uneasily in my chest.

A dream?

No, I remember that now.

Not a dream. Reality.

Yuna.....

I got up, halfway stumbling in disorientation. It was still the same feeling, only stronger now.

Stay with her.

The darkness of the manor's halls was confusing at first, but it wasn't far at all to Yuna's room.

Never leave her.

Trying to be as silent as possible, I inched open her doors and slipped in, closing them behind me.

Make sure she knows how much she means to you.

Yuna's face was painfully sweet in repose, with just the hint of a smile turning the corners of her mouth upwards. There would be no tears tonight. The peaceful expression on her face made something catch in my throat, made me determined that she should never bear that look of misery and torment that she'd shown in my worst memories.

Keep her always.

Tentatively, slowly, I crawled under the blankets and, slipping an arm over her waist, drew her near. This woke Yuna from her sleep, but only halfway; she murmured a mildly surprised 'Nn?' before realizing it was I.

"Hey..."

I pressed my lips to her throat, keeping my head in the crook of her shoulder and neck. Her hand came up, and I felt the soothing sensation of her fingers weaving through my hair.

"I...saw you that day...on the Farplane," I began, refusing to either stop breathing in the scent of her or take my head away from the safe little nook.

"Uhn?"

"When...when you wanted to jump."

She stiffened slightly against me - I could feel her pulse change.

"Y-you *what*...?"

"I couldn't call out to you."

Her hand clenched my hair a bit tightly, but it was from shock, and I didn't mind - there were too many emotions to bother with physical pain.

"I couldn't tell you to stop..."

Her next breath of air was taken in shakily; was she crying?

"I...couldn't tell you you weren't alone. You couldn't hear me."

She bit her lip, and I knew that if she wasn't on the verge of tears, then she was in them.

"I wanted to die.....Lulu wouldn't let me." She choked. So, she was crying - but it was silent.

"I know, love.." I kissed her throat again, holding her more tightly to me. "I'll have to thank her for that."

"I hated her for it."

"Well...I'm here, Yuna. I'm not leaving you, I promise." I reached a hand up and blindly brushed away the streaks of moisture on her cheeks. "You've shed too many of these over me."

Yuna shifted then, moving down to wrap her arms about my waist and rest her head on my chest. "Stay with me?"

"Of course."

"...Tidus?"

"Hmm?"

"Thank you..."

"For what?"

"Everything..."

"Shh. Sleep."

"Okay."

After a few moments, "Yuna?"

"Yeah?"
"I love you,"

I could feel her smile against my skin.

______________________________

Okay! I know this chapter was kind of depressing........again. x-x I promise, it gets more lighthearted! I just needed to put this in.

I honestly do think the Farplane and the pyreflies don't get enough attention. Well, *someone's* gotta explain it. ^_^

As for the "When a lovebird dies" reference, does anyone remember when Tidus and Yuna were talking at the Farplane during the whole Seymour-proposing thing? And Tidus was explaining that his neighbor had remarked that 'when a lovebird dies, its mate just...gives up on living'. T_T I thought that was such a sweet statement, and it fit so perfectly. Please tell me how I did on this chapter...I don't know if I should edit and repost or just leave it as it is. There might be a few problems I didn't catch.

Mucho fluff-o in the next chapter.

And still more surprises ensue...Bwaha =D So stay tuned!