trans_9 | No Tears This Time (Open)

Of all the duties of a summoner, the Sending was easily the hardest for Yuna to face. Every time she took up her staff and danced, it meant only one thing: more people had violently died, needlessly died, shouldn't have died, wouldn't have died had an outside source not torn them apart. Left alone to wander the universe with their anger at sudden death intact, their lost souls could coalesce into an even greater threat.

This time, she thought with a painful clench of her heart, she wasn't guiding the souls of a small army's soldiers or the scattered casualties of a ruined town. If their information was to be believed, with the possible exception of her guardians, all Spirans had perished in the Ohm's violent strike. Knowing that meant she was likely the last summoner still living---thus the responsibility for their souls fell to her.

Even as she picked up her staff and walked to the center of the observation deck, standing under the red sky as seen through the window, she had her doubts. Without a Farplane, where would they go? Could her prayers reach them this far away? Could one summoner handle so many souls? A total annihilation of her planet and countless others. It was a daunting task to be sure, but just a small pebble on the long journey awaiting this crew.

No matter what happened, she thought forcefully, she owed it to everyone to give it a try. With a strong enough prayer, they would have a chance at final peace.

Her mind made up, Yuna began her solemn dance. There were no hymns, water columns, or sparkling lights this time: just a girl left alone to mourn the deaths in her own way, the entire overwhelming situation putting her rhythm just slightly off.

When the last of her fervent prayers trailed from her mind past the tip of her staff, invisibly entering the universe, she let the rod clatter to the ground and dropped to her knees. Whispering into the humid air, she willed one last thing to be true.

"I'm sorry, everyone. If there's a way to stop this, even a way to right this wrong...I will. I promise you."

Flat | Top-Level Comments Only

Snow was a man of his word. When he and Serah woke up, they were led up to the Obs Deck, so that was naturally the first place he was going to check out. Just in case anybody else was there. Serah woke up a few minutes after he did, so it was clearly obvious that there could be new arrivals who 'slept in' so to speak. The deck had been so full of people when he arrived, so seeing it now, emptied out after it seemed all were out of the caverns and the crew continued on their business - it was strange.

When he spotted Yuna, he had made the motion to walk over to her, opening his mouth to call out to her in greeting. But when she began to dance he stopped short, curious and admittedly, confused. So he watched her for a few minutes in the silence - a silence that only aided to the strange feeling that ran through his veins as he did. It was a feeling of sadness, a look of loneliness from the movements she made. Snow figured it might have had something to do with her being a summoner, but as she continued, he didn't see any magic, any Aeons like he had seen earlier, anything at all. Maybe, he thought, something would happen when she stopped dancing. Some sort of slow build-up of power.

But when she stopped, he still saw nothing. And then his eyes went wide when she dropped her staff, falling to her knees. Did something go wrong? Was she hurt? Snow then made his presence known, quickly moving over to where Yuna fell, kneeling down low and putting a concerned hand gently on her back. "Hey! You okay?"

"Snow," Yuna greeted him, her voice gentle and sad. That attempt had reached a little further than the last one, she thought. It was foolish to expand her call in every direction at once, but a few smaller attempts might just do it.

"I'm all right. I think...I've finally figured this out."

"'Figured this out'?" he repeated as a question, unmoving. She said she was okay, but she still looked awfully exhausted.

"How to send those who have died because of the Ohm," Yuna answered solemnly. "Everyone's so far away, but their anguished thoughts still linger out there. I'm meant to bring them peace---it was just a matter of extending my wish."

And that, Snow, was what she was doing. Not that it likely made any sense.

It'd take him a minute, but it did make ... some sort of sense when he thought about it. "Sort of like a prayer? What does send mean?"

"To send means to guide the dead beyond this life. If their souls do not find rest, hatred of the living eventually warps them into fiends that then attack us. It's a horrifying fate---all the fiends my guardians and I had to fight past were once people, warped beyond recognition by the pain of death."

Yuna looked down guiltily. It was always something she'd tried not to think about. At least she was usually able to send them afterward.

So then she was just ... Oh, man he thought. He didn't like to think of the idea himself, so if Yuna was doing something like this ... she must have let the thought of all of the people she'd ever seen and known, the countless people on her planet being gone really settle in.

"I'm sure it worked, to whoever needed it, but!" he added - he had to make sure to keep Yuna's spirits up. "I bet the number's not nearly as high as anyone might think. Not with all of those unopened pods down there."

No Tears This Time (Open)

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