summonerd | do you want to die together

do you want to die together

Sheena hadn't really expected this whole summoner thing to work.

The temple at Luca is a temple in little more than name only, small and humble in a way that she remembers Kilika Temple wasn't, without even statues of the high summoners. The little statue that houses its fayth is well-tended, but it sticks out like a sore thumb in a building that might have been a little-used warehouse a few years ago. Even the cloister of trials doesn't feel complete, easy enough even for Sheena to figure out on her own, but none of that really matters, in the end - what's important is the fayth itself, and her ability to pray to it to its satisfaction.

She hadn't been able to shake the feeling that it wouldn't work - that no fayth would ever accept an Al Bhed summoner despite her upbringing, that she'd pray for days with no response - but in the end, it hadn't taken more than a few hours before she'd been answered. Let me come with, her new aeon - Corrine - had requested, and Sheena had been so grateful to them for her success that she'd agreed.

Really, the looks on the temple guardians' faces when she'd walked out with an aeon almost as tall as she was at her side had been more than worth it.

It's sunset when she untangles herself from the small crowd that had gathered to see Spira's youngest aeon, and she can see the sun flashing brightly through the gaps between buildings as she makes her way outside. She rests her hand on Corrine's shoulder lightly for a second without thinking, then realizes her mistake and jolts, pulling it away - but they just laugh silently in her head, nudging at her hand playfully.

There's a second building just adjacent to the temple, a more traditional Martelite affair that existed long before the fayth's temple did, and as Sheena gets closer to it she can hear a commotion of some kind, a woman's voice raised in annoyance and a lower voice answering her. She considers just leaving, the tension of her trial starting to evaporate in a way that makes her long for her room at the inn, but there's no way back to her lodgings without passing by, anyway. Might as well see what's happening. So she puts her hand back where it was, asks Corrine softly not to wander too far as they head towards the source of the noise.

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

"You were supposed to begin your pilgrimage last week."

"Eh, but I don't have guardians! A summoner going on the roadtrip on his own? Now that would've been real stupid."

"I've told you, boy, if it's guardians you need we can hire as many mercenaries as needed."

A scoff. "Yeah, right! Because mercenaries will be so much help in Zanarkand."

The small growl caught in Mylene's throat makes its way out of her lips despite herself, and upon hearing it, Zelos smirks. His mother's eyes narrow at the sight, but he's struck an uncomfortable cord with that, he knows, and so their argument uselessly goes back to square one: complete and utter silence.

Sunset colours the streets of Luca differently, giving the seaside city an almost ethereal look as lights slowly come alive, as the water soaks up the last rays of sunlight. It's very different from Zelos' memories of Guadosalam, back when he was a child. And really, the only reason why they're even here in Luca now in the first place is because for some reason Mylene has decided that her son has come of age and is perfectly eligible for a pilgrimage himself; something about their family saving face, about the hope of the world, and blah blah blah whatever.

Zelos crosses his arms and groans, rolling his neck and shoulders as Mylene finds new words to terrorize her son with. If you ask him, just because his father was a summoner doesn't mean Zelos should follow family tradition too, but apparently Mylene has different ideas in mind. She is a woman of the Church of Martel, anyway. And, Al Bhed or not, her husband was a pivotal figure of the faith in the city. The people need someone to believe in, is what Mylene keeps saying. Well, Zelos thinks the people can shove it up their collective asses. Just lay down and let Sin destroy it all already, for crying out loud.

Mylene clears her throat.

"Luca's temple may be new, but it already houses a Fayth in it. You will pray to it and depart on your pilgrimage tomorrow," she instructs, an air of cold finality in her words that Zelos glares at. "It's time to stop putting it off, Zelos."

Oh for the love of fuck. What the hell! Zelos feels his blood boil, a million excuses already coming up to the surface and causing his jaw to drop in anticipation of saying them, but no words come out. His breath gets caught in his throat, dual coloured eyes catching sight of something coming in from the corner leading up to the temple--or rather, someone. And when he sees the girl just casually walking around with Spira's youngest Aeon by her side like it's no problem at all, Zelos gets an idea.

"Hey, you!" he calls out, shoving past Mylene. "You with the Aeon!"

Oh, Martel damn it all.

Sheena doesn't catch the whole of Zelos and Mylene's conversation, but from what bits she does pick up she's sure she wants no part of this familial spat. "C'mon, there's a lot more of Luca to see," she tells Corrine, and sets her shoulders, intent on passing by without acknowledging either person.

But then Zelos calls out to her.

Her heart jumps in her throat a little to be addressed so suddenly, but -- this is what you signed up for, Sheena. People always want a summoner's attention, for one reason or another. She should at least try to be professional about it. So she takes a slow breath, coming to a halt and turning to look at whoever it is that wants her attention so badly. A... Guado, maybe? There aren't many in Luca, or its surrounding islands, but she's seen a few in passing. That doesn't matter; all she has to do is be polite and use her exhaustion as an excuse to get out of whatever it is he needs. Sheena sets a small smile onto her face, makes sure that her bangs are covering her face well enough for plausible deniability.

"Did you need something?" she asks as he approaches.

"Excuse me, hon," Zelos begins when he makes his way over, body language relaxed and excited as he waves hello and gestures at the girl, "but given the fact that you're currently proudly walking around with Luca temple's Aeon on tow, I assume you're a summoner, correct?"

Next, Zelos looks around, making it a show out of him looking to his left and right with a hand shielding him from the receding sun, then dropping it to cup his chin in thought. "And what do you know," he adds, looking around the girl and her Aeon as he circles her, observant, "you don't look like you have any guardians around, do you?" He catches the way the Aeon protectively curls around their summoner and laughs, getting out of her immediate space before he can regret it, then comes back around to stand in front of her again.

A summoner without any guardians? Completely ridiculous, but not impossible. Maybe her guardians are somewhere else in the city, loitering or waiting for her, but why would they leave her alone during and after her praying? That's just rude. And stupid. But, well, whatever; this is great for Zelos, actually. It's not the same as going on a pilgrimage himself, but the prestige is the same...

"Zelos," Mylene calls out behind him, and the redhead tenses ever so slightly at the sound of her voice alone. "What on Martel's name are you doing to that poor girl?"

The only thing the girl gets from Zelos is a grin before he pushes himself behind her and sets his hands on her shoulders, presenting and pushing her forwards to Mylene. "I'm offering this cute summoner here my services as a guardian, duh!"

Holy Martel, this better work out.

Sheena takes a step back as he circles her, almost stepping on Corrine's paw in her surprise.

"Uh, yeah, I am," she says, after he's spoken. "I was just planning on going it alone. I don't really think I need a guardian." She's spent the last three years honing her skills, training in black magic and saving every spare gil for potions in make sure that she'll be equal to this challenge, after all. Relying on someone else - someone she doesn't even know - would just overcomplicate things.

What is with this guy?

"Hey!" she says, startling at his touch, spinning around to face him as Corrine does their best to nudge their way between her and Zelos. "I just said--"

"You?" Mylene's laugh cuts in immediately, the woman crossing her arms as she regards Sheena and her son. "A guardian for a summoner?"

"She's already gone through the trial. And she definitely needs a guardian!" Zelos shrugs, happily ignoring Sheena's own statement of not needing a guardian. "What do the teachings tell us, mother? All summoners require guardians to protect and aid them in their pilgrimage, and all that shit."

Mylene looks like she has something else to say, but Zelos cuts her off by flapping a hand about in dismissal. "Look, I'm already fully prepared for that! And I know the path summoners take and the location of every temple like the back of my hand, so!" He switches his attention to Sheena instead, grin a little tight as his bangs hide his shamefully begging expression from Mylene. "Come on, hunny! There's strength in numbers, you know!"

Her first instinct is to pull away, to tell this kid to leave her alone - she doesn't need anyone else. She already got one Aeon to accept her all on her own, and that was the part she'd been most worried about. Having anyone else along for the ride is just asking to have her secrets exposed for all of Spira to see, and then she'll never get to Zanarkand. There are plenty of wannabe summoners, anyway. He can find someone else to tag along with, and she opens her mouth to tell him so.

But Sheena makes the mistake of looking up into his face, and his expression...

This is a terrible idea.

"...Alright, I guess," is what comes out of her mouth instead of a refusal. "Just as long as you can keep up."

Oh, thank fuck that worked.

Zelos' glee and relief is immediately reflected in an obnoxious laugh as he finally gets away from her personal space. "Wonderful!" he exclaims, clasping his hands in front of himself. He then sets them on his hips and turns to look at the receding sun in the horizon, taking in the growing darkness with a low hum. It's too late to catch any kind of ship to the next temple now, so maybe they should stay the night here and prepare. And who knows where she's planning to go next, anyway. They should plan this out.

Mylene quickly beats him to the punch by making her way over to the girl, bowing gently. "Lady summoner," she speaks. "If you truly do wish to recruit my son for your cause, then I will not stop you. And in that case," she says next, rising from her bow and gesturing broadly behind her, over to the beautiful, old building Sheena saw before, "please, allow us to help you by hosting you indefinitely before your next departure."

Oh, okay. That works, actually. Hands still on his hips, Zelos turns back to look at Sheena again. "Yeah! We'll get everything sorted with you and then we can get going tomorrow. We'll need a name to call you, though," he adds with a wink, laughing under his breath as he leans in to whisper, "lest you want her to keep calling you 'Lady Summoner' all day."

Honestly, Sheena's just glad that Zelos doesn't try to hug her or something when she agrees. She follows his gaze out to the setting sun, comes to the same conclusion - she needs to rest before they set out. With any luck this kid will burn out on his own before too long, and she'll be able to drop him off back here by the time she's done with the temples in Kilika and Besaid.

She turns her attention back to her surroundings as Mylene approaches, her stomach flipping a little with anxiety when the woman actually bows to her, and she quickly returns the gesture. It'd be impolite to refuse, right? "Thank you very much for the offer," she says, her tone much more polite than it had been when talking to Mylene's son. "Some of my things are still at the inn I stayed at last night, but I can pick those up and come back."

She tilts her head at Zelos's words, half-closes her eyes so that they're not too obviously bright green. "It's Sheena," she tells them both. "And you're... Zelos, right?" She thinks that's what Mylene had called him a moment ago, at least.

"That's me!" Zelos says, saluting with two fingers to his forehead. You could probably see the sparkle coming out of his eye as he winks, buzzing excitement in his veins moving him. "The wonderful Zelos Wilder, at your service! I'm good with a sword and shield, but even better at both white and black magic. I'll protect you!"

Mylene promptly ignores her son and nods at Sheena instead, stepping aside with another small bow of her head. She does wait until Zelos is done talking before speaking, though. "Of course, Lady Sheena. I will arrange a room for you when you return." She says it with an undeniable sense of finality in her tone, but before she leaves she turns to her son one last time, eyebrows raised as if wordlessly saying 'we'll talk later.'

Zelos rolls his eyes at her. Geez, okay.

Without further ado Mylene turns around and walks back to the building, all ethereal grace in the warm colours of the sunset. Zelos waits until she's a few steps away before he addresses his summoner again, grinning brightly. "After you," he bows, one hand on his chest while gesturing to the streets with his free one. Then he catches Corrine's gaze as he raises back, and. "Uh." How does he say this? Like, what's the terminology? 'Put away?' No, that's super rude, isn't it? "You might wanna unsummon your Aeon, probably," he ends up saying.

"Nice to meet you," she says, though it comes out a little uncertain as she looks him over. Her guardian, now. Great. At least he can heal. Sheena'd tried, but she'd never really gotten anywhere with white magic.

She nods back to Mylene in gratitude before she turns to leave, watching her go for a moment. What the hell had just happened? Sheena has no idea, and she thinks that she has no chance of piecing it together even if she stands here until dawn. Which she's not about to do, and she turns her attention back to Zelos.

"Ah, they asked me to let them see the city," she says, sheepish, and Corrine looks back from where they'd wandered off towards the rest of the city, tails twitching in excitement. Are you coming? they ask.

They're going to attract a lot of attention, but... She can't exactly say no, can she? "At least it's getting dark," she offers. Luca's brightly lit enough that Corrine will still be able to explore, but... No, no one's going to just not notice an Aeon, even a relatively small one like Corrine.

Corrine bounds back over, all cheerful energy, and Sheena sighs. "People are gonna stare, you know."

I don't mind crowds, they say, and Sheena pauses to wonder if Zelos can hear their words. And you don't have to worry. I can feel where you are.

"...Alright," Sheena says, after a moment, feeling very unprepared for the task of chaperoning an Aeon around one of Spira's biggest cities. "Then let's go," she finishes, to the both of them, and starts walking.

An Aeon asking their summoner to show them the city? Okay, that's fair. Zelos can understand the that. Especially with an Aeon as young as Luca's. Now, keeping a conversation in front of her own guardian when no one other than a summoner can understand their Aeon? That's kinda rude. "I can't hear what they say, you know," Zelos points out, one eyebrow raised as he follows right behind Sheena. "Talking to an Aeon is kind of a summoner's only thing."

He waits a while after that, lost in thought for a minute there as he processes what the fuck just happened. A summoner without guardians, parading around an Aeon, talking to them as if everyone in Spira could understand them...

Does Sheena even...?

"Say, where do you come from?" Zelos says after a silence, arms up in the air and hands behind his head as he walks. He kicks up a pebble on the road and hums, tilting his head to look at his summoner, and grins. "How many temples have you prayed in? Kilika? Besaid?" Zelos chuckles. "Or maybe you're doing the whole thing backwards?"

As it turns out, Sheena doesn't know. She tries to play it off as well as she can - she's the one with experience, here, sparse as it is. "Oh, sorry," she says, casual enough, glancing his way but not turning to face him. "They just told me they didn't mind if they drew a crowd."

She leads him down a path that's not quite a main road, still well-lit and dotted with businesses but a little less full of people to gawk. Corrine, for their part, is having the time of their life, darting here and there a ways ahead of Sheena and Zelos as they investigate.

"I'm from around Djose, originally," she says, when he speaks up again. "But... this is the first temple I've prayed at." She'd told Zelos's mother that she was staying at an inn, but... really, by this point, it might as well just be her home. The innkeeper had suggested to her, not too long ago, that it might be cheaper for her to just settle down somewhere, but she'd been adamant that she was almost ready to start her pilgrimage. And here she is. "I thought I'd start here, then visit Kilika and Besaid's."

Then maybe, with three Aeons under her belt, she'll be ready to face Djose and its temple again.

"What about you?" she asks, eyeing him in the lamplight. "No offense, but you don't see a lot of Guado in Luca."

Djose's not that bad a starting point, and there's also a temple there, so it's not surprising that a summoner would hail from there. Buuuuut Sheena says this is her first one, and Zelos stores that information away for later. Why would a summoner skip around and not begin in her own hometown or down at Besaid as it's typical?

Oh well. He decides not to draw attention to that right now. Instead, he picks the question he'd asked Sheena in the first place back up when she throws it his way.

Zelos hums low in his throat, smiling and looking down at Corrine as they stop to smell a bed of flowers. "Nope, you don't," he acknowledges with a shrug. "We came here from Guadosalam on official duties for the Church of Martel when I was a kid, and just never left. Kind of hard for a Minister of Civil Affairs to leave her post and duties behind, anyway."

Edited (What if Mylene's the Minister of Civil Affairs and Colette's fam is the Temple Affairs) 2019-10-01 19:31 (UTC)

Sheena appreciates that he doesn't ask, at least. Maybe this won't be so bad, until she can shake him off.

"A minister of--" she starts, then cuts herself off suddenly, processing just what he'd said.

Should she bow? She should probably bow, and she does, hastily. "I didn't realize," she says, unnecessarily.

Oh sweet heavens, is she-- is she bowing to him? In the true Martelite way, too! Oh dear, okay-- this is a lot. Like, enough for Zelos to start laughing, actually, an unsure and high-pitched sound that carries his confused discomfort.

"Ah, I'm not the Minister?" he says, waving his hands in front of himself to get her to stop doing that bowing thing. Corrine is curiously looking their way now, too. "That'd be my mother, Mylene Wilder. You know, the woman who offered to take you in earlier? She's kind of a big deal?"

But... how could a summoner not know about the Minister...? Or maybe Sheena just... didn't know what she looked like, or something. No no, that's not quite right. Mylene's always been kind of uppity about how she's perceived within the church, sure, but she also holds onto her prestige with an iron fist, so...

What the hell.

Sheena shakes her head quickly when he speaks - she knows that much, at least. "I know, I just--" she says, her face heating up. He's not the Minister, but he's still deserving of respect if that's his mother, right? Fuck. "I... didn't realize." Now that she thinks about it, how did she not recognize Mylene Wilder? Maybe the exhaustion is hitting her harder than she realizes.

It's been a long day," is what she offers by way of explanation, though the blush on her face is dark enough to be visible even in the low light. "You know, with the trial and all." She looks away, speeds up her pace a little bit in the direction of the inn to hide her embarrassment.

"The inn's just up here," she says. "The innkeeper's holding my stuff for me, I'll just be a second. You can stay out here if you want."

I'll come with, Corrine puts in brightly, the way they return to her side making their intentions clear to Zelos.

("This is it, then?" the innkeeper asks, as she hands Sheena her belongings. "Safe travels, then."

"Thanks for everything," Sheena tells her, hefting it over her shoulder, with a soft smile. She'll be coming back through Luca soon, she knows, but she can't stay here again. She'd sworn to herself that one way or another, yesterday would be the last night she spent under this roof.)

True to her word, summoner and Aeon are only inside for a few minutes before they reappear, a packed bag slung over Sheena's back. Unless Zelos has any objections, she'll lead the way back to the temple, make polite excuses, and crash hard for the night.

Edited (timeskip heaven now) 2019-10-02 04:52 (UTC)

Though eight in the morning is a thoroughly disgusting hour for anyone to be up and about, Zelos still manages to rise and shine around then just to have time to prepare for the road ahead. Honesty, he's usually up by noon, and that shows in his exhausted gait and barely-opened eyes, the coffee mug he nurses being his only anchor to the waking world as he directs himself over to the gardens one last time. But, well, this is a special occasion, right? Special circumstances require special treatments.

At least the early morning breeze does wonders to help awaken him once he's outside, the juxtaposition between hot coffee and cold morning air a nice trick to surviving such an early awakening. Zelos takes a deep breath, closes his eyes. The garden was always his favourite part of the temple, and yet this hardly even counts as a goodbye. Goodbyes imply an attachment of some sort. And despite calling a religious temple a 'home', Zelos doesn't really give much of a shit about it otherwise. If nothing else, he's just happy to get the hell out of this place for good.

So long, farewell, good riddance, and so on. If everything goes as planned then Zelos will never be returning to these godforsaken walls ever again.

"Such a rarity, to see you up so early."

Martel damn it all to hell.

Well, leave it to Maester Mylene Wilder to be a pest even this early in the morning. Some locks of red hair are displaced when Zelos looks over his shoulder, dancing in the salty sea breeze as he watches the woman approach him. Unlike her son, she has already changed to her proper, daily clothes, ever the annoying image of grace and poise. It makes something in Zelos' blood boil.

It's fine, though. It's all cool. Zelos takes a sip of coffee and fakes a big smile. "Mornin'," he says.

Mylene returns the greeting in such a bored tone Zelos wonders if she also hates waking up so early. "Are you thinking of Lady Sheena?" she then asks when she's close enough, tilting her head, leveling her son with a blank look that makes her frustratingly hard to read. "You've really adapted to your role as a guardian already. How... quaint."

A shrug. "What can I say? I'm super excited to help Spira be rid of Sin."

"A better way of accomplishing thus would be to go on your own pilgrimage. But," Mylene sighs, breaking eye contact by looking away, "I suppose guardianship would also serve the same purpose, in a way."

There's a silence crawling in after she's done speaking, one that claws its way between mother and son as they watch a slowly brightening sky. Yet even from here Zelos can still hear sound of waves crashing in the distance, mixing with that of the foliage of the garden moving in the breeze, the last chirps of crickets. The quietness of sound, mashing with the loudness of this silence, each at odds with one another. The combination almost gives Zelos goosebumps. He fights them off, though, opting instead for staring at a late-blooming flower among its proud peers already in all their splendor, chuckling under his breath as if carefree and unbothered.

"You don't approve of me being a guardian, do you," he accuses.

"Of course not. You were supposed to be the summoner, Zelos," is the answer Mylene wastes no time in giving him.

"Well, I got the wrong job, so it's a little too late for me to be praying to any Fayth now." Zelos takes another sip of coffee, shrugs. He has to make a conscious effort to loosen his grip on the mug and smile. "Besides, you wouldn't wanna tell Sheena her recently-acquired guardian's off-limits now, would you? A summoner without guardians is kind of like, super heresy."

Mylene sighs. "No, I would not."

"Then relax! It should be fine."

She pauses again after that, bringing another silence with her. It's shorter, thankfully; Mylene wastes no time straightening her back and suddenly twisting on her heel to go back. Zelos doesn't make eye contact when she walks by, still staring at that flower, and he fights to keep his gaze trained on it when Mylene stops a few steps behind him, almighty in a silence that only she knows how and when to break.

"'Protect the summoner even at the cost of one’s life'," she recites, toneless voice crawling up Zelos' back. "Your duties as a guardian should not excuse you from following the teachings. So please, do spread good word of our belief in your journey, son."

And with that Maester Mylene Wilder leaves her son rooted in the garden, excusing herself and simply taking her leave.

In the end, Sheena stumbles back into consciousness just a little bit after Zelos, later than is normal for her, but she sets about getting ready and making her final preparations. At least Corrine's not around at the moment; an Aeon can't remain corporeal with its summoner unconscious, though they'd asked her to call on them at some point during the ferry ride. Really, she's just glad they hadn't asked to accompany her through the city in the daytime. There definitely would have been a crowd this time.

It doesn't take her long to get ready, when all her things are still packed, and she pushes the soft hanging rugs that serve as the temple's space dividers aside as she makes her way out of the sleeping quarters in search of Zelos.

She still doesn't know how to feel about him, or any of this. She's supposed to have a guardian, yes, but the talent for summoning is uncommon - of course it would make sense for Martel to want summoners to be protected on their pilgrimages. But Sheena's not unprepared, or a pushover, or stupid; she'd be fine on her own.

On the other hand, a guardian who's the son of one of the highest Maesters in Spira is probably someone who knows what he's doing. And no one will look too closely at her with him along. So if he does actually stick with this instead of getting bored of it and going home... It'll be fine, Sheena thinks. She can use this.

Wherever Zelos is, it's not where she'd expected; she stops the next temple attendant she sees to ask if they'd seen him, but all they have is a suggestion to ask someone in the kitchen. She does, gratefully accepting a small breakfast on her way through, and takes it with her as she follows the cook's directions out to the gardens.

"Hey," she greets him when she spots him, half-waving with the hand not holding her food. "You about ready to go?"

Zelos is so lost in thought that Sheena's greeting startles him a little, but he manages to make his surprise look like curiosity when he turns to face her. And honestly, seeing his summoner--his ticket out of here--really does wonders to make the subsequent grin a little easier to set in place.

"Leaving before breakfast? Now that's just asking for trouble!" he calls out as he turns to join her where she stands, lazily gesturing at a small table on the porch with one hand. "Have a seat! We can use the time to discuss what you wanna do on your journey, after all."

"I didnt't mean right now," Sheena says, though she takes a seat where he gestures. "The ferry doesn't leave for an hour. Just seeing what was up." He doesn't look ready, but how long can it really take?

She mulls over his suggestion for a moment, taking a bite of her food. "I didn't really have anything special planned." She shrugs. "You know, temples, Zanarkand, Sin..." Anything else would just be a distraction from her goal, right?

Yeah, don't worry about it, Sheena, he's got the essentials all packed and ready to go. The sooner he can leave this place behind, the better.

Zelos waves a hand about. "Yeah, yeah, that sounds like the basics, but what's your route?" He sits back on his seat and throws an arm over the backrest, the front legs of the chair lifting off the ground as he uses his free hand to balance against the table, tapping a few notes on the glass surface. "Next up are Kilika and Besaid, and usually, you'd do Besaid first and Kilika second, but we're approaching them backwards. Are we gonna stop in Kilika's temple and then go to Besaid, or go all the way to Besaid's temple, then Kilika, and then try Djose?"

Her first impulse is a rush of impatience - there's really only one way to Zanarkand, especially with all the temple stops being required, so does it matter? - and she scowls a little, but then he clarifies. Alright, that's fair.

"Kilika, then Besaid, I guess?" Sheena says. "We'll have to take the same route either way, but it seems weird to skip a temple and come back." And leaving them for later makes no sense at all, considering just how far it is to Zanarkand.

Zelos nods. "Yeah, sounds fair. We'll probably add a few days to the journey by coming back up after Besaid, but!" He grins and pushes himself forwards again, the chair dropping along with him, perfectly balanced on all four of its legs again. "At least the sights will be pretty, right!"

Well, duh! They're going south! Zelos has never been south. He kind of wonders how they live there, if they even have half the technology and quality of life that Luca has provided. He's mostly curious about sleepy, backwater Besaid. And like, honestly! What's the point of leaving home if one doesn't take in the sights!

He keeps that thought in mind even when Sheena's done with breakfast and he gathers what little luggage he has for the journey ahead, letting the excitement guide him as Mylene and the rest of her religious goonies gather to send them off with a prayer and a bow. Even when Mylene catches and glares at him, Zelos still can't help rolling his eyes at it. Please, he thinks, the summoner's pilgrimage is a hazardous journey, full of natural and human dangers out in the road, not to mention fiends and Sin itself. What are prayers gonna do? Like, really, this is completely unnecessary.

Eugh.

It's still pretty early by the time they finally depart from the temple, and the streets of Luca slowly fill with people as the rest of the cityfolk rouse from their sleep. The road to the ferry is quiet and filled with stupid, mindless chitchat from Zelos' side, his excitement to see the southern islands seeping through his grin and obnoxiously high pitched laugh the closer they get to the docks. Look at him, he thinks to himself. Zelos Wilder, leaving Luca. He can hardly believe it, but it's time.

It's finally happening.

Before they board the ferry, Zelos sets his hands on his hips and turns to Sheena, his summoner. "This is it, hun. No turning back," he announces. He then gives Sheena a wink and a smile encompassed by a playful tilt of the head that plays with his hair, a stray leaf detaching itself and slowly falling to the ground. "Ready to go on your pilgrimage, Lady Sheena?"

As much as she tries to present herself as calm and prepared, Sheena's excited, too. She'd spent her whole life in Djose and later Luca - she wants to see all of Spira, while she still can. She's not as talkative as Zelos, but there's definitely a spring to her step as they make their way to the docks.

"You don't have to call me that if you're my guardian, you know," she says. Really, it's kind of weird to hear. She isn't doing this for the prestige.

Sheena lets a slow breath out, looking around at Luca one last time. She'll be back, she knows, but - this is still a goodbye. "But... yeah, I'm ready," she says, turning back to face him. "Sure you want to do this?"

Tough shit, Sheena, he's gonna keep calling you that for the rest of the journey. But instead of pointing it out or making a stupid joke, Zelos stays quiet while she takes one last look at the city, crossing his arms as he waits. What is it that drives summoners, he wonders, to give up their homes and literal lives for the sake of a lost cause, following and clinging to nothing but their own forlorn hope? The amount of selflessness and resolve needed for such a task is nothing if not monumental.

It's almost terrifying how, given a few weeks or so, Zelos and Sheena's roles might've ended up completely reversed. It only serves to make the differences between them all the more obvious, though; after all, someone like him could never willingly give himself up for anything. He's already rejected the pilgrimage for this long. And yet here Sheena is, facing it head-on and calmly asking him if he's ready to follow.

Sure, he'll follow... until he gets what he wants, that is. This was never about Martel. Lying to her like this almost makes him feel bad.

Almost.

"Positively, absolutely, totally sure!" Zelos says in sing-song. "Now come on!" he adds, reaching a hand over to help Sheena walk up the ferry. "Religion awaits!"

WHAT'S UP I THINK AEONS SHOULD VOTE

CAN ANYONE VOTE IN SPIRA? I THOUGHT IT WAS A THEOCRACY

Sin votes who lives and who dies

Who voted for Sin then

Sin voted herself in

Sheena launches her campaign to get elected over Sin

ZELOS IS HER FIRST SUPPORTER

ONE VOTE SECURED

LIKE, FOUR MORE TO GO

FOUR???

Soon Mithos will vote for her too. Or does that count as half a vote

When will she get Anna's vote

When she gets Lloyd's vote

Is he even in Spira right now

Probably not. He's probably in Zanarkand playing Blitzball or water baseball

WATER BASEBALL SOUNDS SO BAD???

LLOYD SWINGS HIS BAT... AND THE WATER RIPPLES... WHEN WILL HE STOP SWINGING

Lloyd uses two bats, so the answer is "never"

Fuckin' Lloyd causing tsunamis with his bats. Lloyd is now Sin

I can't believe Aly was right after all

[Anna voice] Son I hired you to kill Sin not to BECOME Sin

(Lloyd voice) Wait you're paying me?

[Anna voice] [Leaves]

AURION-IRVING TRAITS: ABANDONMENT

OH I HATE IT