Final Fantasy - All Series Fan Fiction ❯ Love Her and Despair ❯ Schism ( Chapter 1 )

[ T - Teen: Not suitable for readers under 13 ]

Burgundy sails snapped in a fitful wind that set the sailors muttering. The sea-witch had her ways, they said, and owned both sea and sky. Ships plied the waves by her permission, or not at all. There had been frost at sunrise, great spears of rime coating the rails and ropes. The tropical sun had banished it quickly, but it was yet another sign of Sin's proximity. That, and the lightning's balefire dancing on the mast at midnight.

"Land ho!" The call was hardly needed; all eyes not bent to shipboard tasks were fixed on the wisps of smoke billowing on the horizon, fading now like the last breath of a dying fire. The rising column veiled half the sky in a grayish-pink fume that stretched clear back to Luca, and who knew how far beyond. They had come under its shadow as they skirted the Djose shore. For six disquieting days the SS Korra had sailed under ruddy light cast by a flat orange smudge where the sun should be. A stark whiff of something burning masked the usual tang of salt, and now and then white flecks of ash came spiralling down.

One of the harpooners in the bow began to sing the Hymn of the Fayth under his breath. The subdued refrain spread out in ripples. Roughened sailors' voices took up the chorus. A red-haired man in priestly robes standing on the raised deck over the wheelhouse smiled and cupped his hands in the sign of Yevon's prayer. However, neither he nor the pair of guards flanking him joined in the singing.

Sea-boots clattered up the ladder behind them. A woman stepped onto the observation deck and raised her arm in salute. "Your Grace. We shall reach Besaid before sunset."

"Very good, Captain." The man leaned against the forward rail and did not turn. "Tell your crew the danger is past. Sin is at least a day from here by now."

"With all due respect, my Lord—" she began. Suddenly, she swung round to stare at a sailor keeping watch before the mast with the exaggeratedly diligent air of an eavesdropper. "Tatts, what is that you're wearing around your neck?"

The sailor's hands flew to the bone pendant that had slipped out from the bib of his overalls. "It's... ah... it's nothin' cap'n. Just a carvin' of a pretty lady, y'know, that caught me fancy." His wind-scoured cheeks reddened.

"Sin!" she spat. Heads turned as the petite woman stalked towards him, sea-boots drumming against the planks. "The Grand Maester of Yevon sails with us, and I have an idol-worshipper who wears Sin over his heart! Give it to me. If it's not overboard in one minute, you will be."

The sailor blanched. Torn between duty and devotion, the wretched man drew the thong over his neck and dropped the pendant into her waiting palm. The captain drew her arm back to fling it far out over the waves.

"Let me see it," the maester said quietly.

For a moment it seemed that Kiyuri might feign deafness: Grand Maester Isaaru was a soft-spoken man, and the rush of the wind drummed loudly in the sails overhead. But his shorter bodyguard, a blocky, broad-shouldered youth who looked too green for such an important post, had planted himself at the maester's elbow, and was squarely blocking her throw. Scowling, the captain handed it over. "I'm sorry, Your Grace. Sailors are too far from the temples, too close to the sea. And that one came close to meeting his unholy god six months ago. The toxin—"

"He survived a Sin attack?" the other guard asked sharply.

The maester took the amulet and examined it intently. Its triangular silhouette could easily be mistaken for a shark's tooth at a distance. With economy of line, the stylized carving captured the shape of a woman's head and shoulders, square jaw and fine features. There was a haughty arch to the brows— or rather, brow, since the left side of the face was cut away at a slant. Empty space showed where the hair should be.

"The same face," he mused. "Always the same."

Kiyuri stiffened when the maester slipped the sacrilegious amulet into his robes. He chuckled at her expression. "Have no fear, Captain. A scrap of whale-bone the size of a thumb is hardly likely to draw Sin's attention...or mercy," he added to the anxious sailor. "If it returns, we are all in equal peril."

"But, Your Grace—"

"Look after your ship, Kiyuri, and let the maesters look after Yevon, no?"

"My lord." The woman gave a jerky salute, glared at the watchman and went below.

"Now," he said gently, turning to Tatts. "Perhaps you can tell us what you saw. We need to know all we can, since Sin has changed."

"Aye, it has, me lord," the sailor stammered. "That is, She don't bother any ship that leaves her waters in peace. Stray not west o' Besaid if ye sail under Yevon's seal. The Al Bhed go free of Sin's wrath, they say, all around the western isles. Me last ship, me captain tried to make the old run from Luca to Bevelle the short way 'round. Three days northwest o' Luca, the Lady put the ice to us till every sail and line were coated with it and men couldna walk the deck. Then the gale-winds came up and shattered the sheets. At th' last, lighnting struck the mast and split the hull right down into the water like roots o' tree."

"How did you escape?"

"Al Bhed ship picked me up, then, didn't it? Me and a few other souls. Dropped us off near the ruins o' Guadosalam."

"And you saw Sin? What did it—"

"Your Grace," the shorter guard interrupted, "With all due respect, can't we finish this later? You're too exposed up here. There may be sinspawn in the harbor."

"Just a moment, Pacce—"

His other bodyguard cut in. "No, Isaaru, he's right. Yevon's your job, but ours is keeping you safe...and you don't make it easy for us! Get under cover. I'll stay up here with Tatts and find out what else he knows."

"All right, Maroda, all right," Isaaru shook his head. "One would think we were still on pilgrimage. Tatts, for Spira's sake—" he would have said Yevon, but this man clearly followed a different allegiance— "please answer my brother's questions as well as you can. May Lady Yuna bless you."

"Th-thank you, Your Grace."

A melancholy smile played across the maester's features as he descended, trying to catch a glimpse of Besaid before Pacce shuttled him back to their cabin. Sin and the church of Yevon might be scrapping for souls these days, but oddly enough, no one had lost faith in the High Summoner, even though her Calm was coming to an end.

Lost in thought, Isaaru was nearly flung overboard himself when the ship gave an abrupt heave. Pacce lunged and blocked his fall, helping him down the last rung. Cries of Sin rang out. The harpooners leapt to their posts.

"I'll cover you!" Pacce said eagerly. He planted himself in front of his brother, shielding him as a wave crashed over the side. "The wheelhouse, it's closer!"

Isaaru shook his head and grasped a line, steadying himself. "Pacce, it's not Sin, it's—"

A flurry of scales and long fins burst from the waves in a surge of battering spray. Hulking fishy forms thudded against the deck, landing amidst the sailors and pouncing upon them with terrifying speed. Pacce drew his sword with a yell and jammed it at the nearest one, twisting the blade in a gush of pyreflies.

Blood was already running over the boards. The sinspawn had cruel snapping jaws, and were tearing through unarmed sailors despite the efforts of the ship's contingent of warrior monks. There was a cry overhead. Isaaru looked up to see Tatts with an upraised arm trying to fend off two fiends, his back pressed against the railing of the upper deck directly above Isaaru and Pacce.

Forgetting his brothers' admonitions, the ex-summoner raised his hands, letting fly a silent call to the aeon of Besaid, invoking her by the name he had given her long ago. Pterya*, old friend, we need you.

Everywhere was din, panic and chaos, yet to Isaaru's inner ear there was a hollow silence: no Hymn of the Fayth, no beat of wings unfurled as the crimson-feathered spirit arrowed down from heaven's gates.

He watched in anguish as one of the sinspawn clamped down on the sailor's arm, another on his leg. Where was his brother? A thrusting spear answered his question an instant later, but it was one instant too long. Even as Maroda dispatched one of the creatures, the other leapt off the deck, dragging its screaming victim overboard.

For reasons he could not fathom, Pterya was not answering his summons, and Isaaru saw with painful clarity that many lives would be lost if he left the warrior monks and Maroda to deal with the threat alone. But the deck would surely buckle under Spathi's weight, assuming there was even room for the massive aeon of Bevelle. Pitch, rope and oiled boards were ill-suited for Grothia's fire, but Isaaru was running out of options. Shutting out the sounds of melee, he sketched a familiar series of gestures in the air that he had not needed for over ten years.

Few here had seen a true aeon, and there were more screams and cries of horror when the flaming hulk burst from the deck with a defiant roar. The ill-tempered spirit charged into the fray at once, snarling at its master's unspoken command to refrain from flames and restrict itself to pummelling and biting. These sinspawn had the edge in speed, but there were so many that Grothia's swipes usually found targets. It slapped them aside like an ogre swatting wasps.

Gradually the chaos died down as the warrior monks, guardians and aeon gained the upper hand. Blades and spears flashed through eddies and swirls of rising pyreflies. Pacce stoutly shadowed him and kept sinspawn at bay while Isaaru moved from one wounded man to the next, healing those he could. He would send the others later.

They cast anchor half a league out from shore. The surviving crew set to work clearing the carnage and repairing the damage. There beneath a shroud of smoke and a blood-red sunset, Isaaru performed his grimmest duty, giving the dead a sending before the bodies were committed to the deep. Tatts was not among them, but there were probably a few others who would have been comforted to know that the summoner who sent them carried Sin's token in the folds of his robe.

 
*[A/N: In FFX, when Yuna dueled with Isaaru in the Via Purifico, his aeons had different names from hers, although they looked the same: Pterya, Grothia and Spathi for Valefor, Ifrit and Bahamut. Perhaps each summoner must name an aeon to seal the bond.]

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They spent a restless night in the island's lee, huddled to the southwest where the air was clear of ash. At dawn they weighed anchor and headed towards the village, hugging the shore. Soaring green cliffs splashed with plunging waterfalls would have made for a pleasant view, if not for the enormous, jagged gashes in the slopes of the jungle high above. They caught glimpses of shattered trees and dirt blasted away right down to bedrock.

There would be no question of mooring at the ferry's dock; that much was clear before they pulled into the shallow waters of the harbor. Rounding a point, the ship encountered a grisly soup of bobbing planks, rope, snarled fishing nets and slats of boats, all thumping and scraping past the prow. To the dismay of the crew, a few bodies were tangled in the floating debris. They were heaved aboard with nets meant for other kinds of catch. Priests who had accompanied the maester from Bevelle set to work at once wrapping the pitiful remains in funeral shrouds. At this rate, they might run through their stock even before they came ashore.

The beach had been scoured; muck and dead fish were strewn across once-golden sands. Ash coated everything. Some of the splintered and blackened trunks of the jungle behind the bluffs still smoldered. A few carrion-birds circling the cliffs were the only signs of life— almost.

There blazing red in the dawn, a man stood upon the water. No, not on the water. One scrap of dock had escaped Sin's wrath, and a few planks remained on piers far out in the harbor. Excited murmurs spread across the ship, whispering a name— or, more often, a title.

The Legendary Guardian. He was back again, from wherever heroes were stowed when the world did not need them.

"It's Sir Auron!" Pacce was beside himself. "I don't believe it! It's really him!"

Maroda was silent. His thoughtful look meant he and Isaaru would be having a difficult conversation later, out of Pacce's earshot.

So then: a brief detour to pick up an improbable passenger. Isaaru ordered the ship's dinghy to be lowered. The crew's fear had evaporated at the sight of the swordsman silhouetted against the smoking treeline, and Kiyuri had to select rowers from among too many volunteers. While the crew were winching the boat down to the water, Maroda argued vigorously with Isaaru. Maroda seldom lost his battles. Isaaru and a frustrated, fuming Pacce were left to watch the small craft sculling across the harbor, shoving its way through debris-choked water.

As they approached the lone figure who had been standing there all this time, Maroda's query rang out over the waves. "Sir Auron! What are you doing here?"

The response was inaudible to those left aboard, but Pacce would dig it out of his brother later. "Waiting for a ship."