#this was so much fun to write liz thank yoooouuu

[soartfullydone]

@editoress asked: A kiss to prove a point for Yuna and Seymour. 

Yuna’s return to Bevelle was no homecoming. The holy city of Yevon had stopped being home the moment her father, Lord Braska, left for his pilgrimage to defeat Sin. Her father, who she loved but knew better through other’s stories and memories than her own. A father who had brought the Calm but never returned.

A father whose footsteps she tried walking alongside rather than step-for-step. Yuna wanted to defeat Sin forever, to bring the Eternal Calm, one where no more summoners and their guardians had to die for a hollow victory. She wanted to end the spiral of suffering in Spira.

She felt farther away from achieving that future than she’d ever been. She couldn’t see her father’s steps. He had never walked this path before.

“Bevelle has never known such a lovely bride,” said a deceptively soft voice as its owner entered the room. “Nor will it again.”

Yuna’s attendants scattered, fleeing the room wordlessly as Maester Seymour approached. The train on Yuna’s wedding dress swept across the dark, marbled floor as she turned to find him in striking black robes, his chest covered and a white cravat at his throat. Her groom. “Please,” she said, with all the kindness and authority she had as a summoner, “let me send you.”

“There is no need for that.” As Seymour raised his hand, the sleeve of his robe exposed how his fingers were a little too long to be fully human, his nails talon-like but well-kempt. “I don’t plan on remaining as an unsent for much longer.”

If she had her staff, Yuna would begin her dance, fruitless though it would be. Defiance rose like a pyrefly’s glow within her, but the only show of it she could make was to ball her fists. The silk gloves she wore didn’t even give her the satisfaction of friction. “Nor will our marriage last. So why…?”

Why go through with this farce? Why abduct her from the heart of the Bikanel Desert, from her guardians? Why dress her like a blushing bride, in pure white with wings of freedom upon her back, if what she would marry was a patricide and undead malice personified? 

“I told you,” Seymour responded. “To give the people of Spira hope.”

Yuna might’ve trusted the answer more if he’d displayed any hints of irritation, but he was as serene as when he’d first proposed to her. Her heels clacked too loud against the stone floor. “How will you give them hope,” she asked, soft but firm, “when you have none yourself?”

Seymour’s eyes met hers, and it took everything Yuna had not to recoil. Was it because he was unsent that his eyes appeared so devoid of life, of feeling? Had that spark she’d seen when he’d talked of Lady Yunalesca and Lord Zaon in Guadosalam been real, or had he always feigned at life? “You have enough,” he replied bluntly, “for us all.”

“No,” Yuna replied, on the cusp of hopelessness herself. “This isn’t about hope. Not for you.”

“If I tell you I love you, will that make it easier?”

“Only the truth will do that.” Yuna squared her shoulders, the action built of a quiet but dogged resolve she had always possessed. For a long time, she believed it had come from her father. Now, she believed it was born from the tenacity of her mother’s people, the heretical Al Bhed. “Why did you murder Lord Jyscal?”

Seymour’s mouth slanted into a mockery of a smile. “Didn’t his sphere tell you? You killed me over it, as I recall.”

“Yes.” What did you call an emotion that was neither all pity nor all rage? Yuna didn’t know. “But I’m asking you.”

“Yuna.” He said her name so wistfully, so futilely. “What does it matter?”

“He said he couldn’t protect you or your—”

“Protect me?” Seymour’s soft tenor dropped dangerously low. “What a curious interpretation, considering he never once tried to.”

There was no mistaking his eyes for being lifeless now. Their purple depths gleamed with an unholy wrath, a mixture of pain, hatred, and bitter amusement. But his face… The skin had gone so pale it was close to translucent. The Guado veins arching down from his forehead were to blame. They were so shockingly blue against his bloodless skin, Yuna almost believed if she were to reach out and touch one, they’d prick her finger. 

“He confessed to his failing, and—”

“No,” interrupted Seymour, advancing a step. Then another, gliding ever closer. “No, Yuna, I do not believe he confessed to anything.”

Forgetting her surroundings, Yuna’s back collided with the floor-length mirror behind her, crushing the tiny angel’s wings sewn into her dress. The glass was shockingly cold against her skin, but at least it was a natural cold. Yuna went very still as Seymour loomed over her, giving off no warmth. His hand cupped her cheek, sending a chill down her spine.

“My father foolishly brought a child into the world that no one wanted. An abomination.” Seymour brushed his thumb along Yuna’s cheek to soften the cruel worlds, but Yuna was all too aware of the sharp tip of his nail. “Instead of condemning the people’s hatred, he succumbed to it. I grew up in exile with my mother, whose only crime was bringing that abomination into the world. Both of us shunned because he chose them over those he should’ve loved.”

His breath was a cool mist as he leaned his face toward hers. For a wild, frightening moment, Yuna thought he’d kiss her. “It was my mother who took me to Zanarkand. My mother, who made a sacrifice of herself for my sake. She became a fayth, so I would use her as an aeon. So that when I defeated Sin, the people would finally love me.” 

“An aeon,” Yuna breathed, shocked. “You don’t mean—!”

“Anima, yes. In a way, you and I have upheld a long-standing marriage tradition. You’ve gotten to meet my mother.”

Yuna shook her head, unable to process the events at Macalania Temple all over again. Of what was happening now. The maester seized her, his touch becoming biting in keeping her still. “Surely, Lord Jyscal didn’t—”

Seymour’s haunted, grief-stricken expression hardened into deepest loathing. “My father knew of the whole affair, and still he did nothing. He let her die, let her take part in the world’s endless suffering. And still, still, I could not go home, remaining at Baaj alone. So tell me, Yuna. To a summoner who fights to give all for Spira’s sake, does that sound like protection to you?”

Yuna didn’t answer. She couldn’t. The images Seymour painted were too horrific to contemplate, and yet she did. The events played out in her mind, and she saw what a child would see and felt what a child would feel at watching the only parent he knew sacrifice herself. Yuna didn’t know when it happened, but at some point, she didn’t see the child Seymour had been and his human mother anymore. In their place was Yuna, as she’d been at seven years old, and Braska, his broad back the last thing of him she’d ever see.

Seymour brushed away Yuna’s tears, his touch tender and his voice a soothing coo.  

“Yes, a part of you understands,” Seymour continued, a hair above a whisper. “I see it there, shadowed in your beautiful eyes. You don’t want to acknowledge it, but you do.” His mouth curled ruefully. “In another life—no, in another world, perhaps, we would have been a good match. We might have learned to be happy.”

“We still can,” Yuna tried, “if my pilgrimage continues.”

“Your pilgrimage ends here, my love. Be grateful. Nothing awaits you in Zanarkand but death. I’ve seen it firsthand. Even if you survived it, it would never let you go.”

Seymour did, but it was only long enough to reach for the gossamer fabric that would serve as her veil. He worked with sure, gentle hands to pin the veil to the tiara fashioned on the crown of her head, the rest of her hair pinned in an elaborate up-do. It was all gone, the emotion that had shattered his tranquil expression and inflamed his speech. Now, he was a groom breaking the most sacred of traditions, seeing his bride before the wedding. Worse, he was adding the finishing touch himself without the slightest hint of joy, anticipation, or lust.

Yuna would take lust if it meant being free of this sudden lifelessness.

He’d taken the edges of her veil to pull over her face when she stopped him, her hands catching each of his wrists. “Is this,” she challenged, “to save Spira?”

“There is no saving Spira,” Seymour answered at last. “Its spiral of suffering will continue unless someone brings it to an end. Not just Sin, but life. The world. Everything.”

“You truly believe that’s the only way?”

“I know it is. And which is more merciful? Letting the world’s pain continue, or bringing it to a peaceful end?”

Yuna’s eyes, one Al Bhed green and one blue like her father’s, flashed. “I cannot accept those choices.”

“I know that, too. But your fire, as beautiful as it is, is why you suffer.”

“And yours,” she rebutted, “is because you can’t see why any of it matters. Why we fight. Why, even now, my friends are coming for me. Seymour, life is about so much more than suffering.”

Yuna let go of his wrists, burying her hands instead into his robes and the fabric of his cravat. She pulled him down fast, closing her eyes. Seymour gave no resistance as her mouth found his. Yuna kissed him, tentative and scared at first, but he was right. Her fire was never far, and she reached for it now. Finding her nerve, she slid her mouth deliberately against his, her tongue darting out to brush his lips.

It changed everything. Seymour moaned into her mouth, sending a deep vibration straight through her. Defenses broke down and their lips moved together, an unspoken question meeting its forbidden answer. Seymour’s hand clutched the back of her head over the veil while his other found the curve of her waist, bringing her flush against him. It didn’t matter anymore that his body gave off no warmth when his mouth was so hot. The kiss—the need it had uncovered in them both—turned desperate. Yuna found herself willing to succumb to its sweet poison if she could just—  

With a surge of strength that would make Kimahri proud, Yuna broke the kiss and shoved herself away from Seymour. “No!” 

They both stumbled back, Yuna out of breath but with Seymour fairing no better. His eyes were wild with want, but all too soon, they narrowed with suspicion and resentment. Seymour looked alive, felt it, and that realization brought him to his full height, a hand upon his mouth. He was torn between wiping Yuna’s kiss away or pressing the remnants of it there to immortalize forever. Instead, he did neither, remaining frozen to watch Yuna’s next move, the summoner proving she was less prey than predator, one biding its time for a day like today. 

But where the flush of desire clouded his face and caused him to hesitate, righteous anger hardened her features and strengthened her resolve. 

“It’s only suffering, remember?” Yuna said coldly into the quiet space between them. “That’s all life is. You don’t get to have more. You don’t want to have more.”

Outside, Bevelle’s temple sounded the hour, signaling that it was time for the wedding to proceed.