Riona (![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png)
rionaleonhart) wrote2020-05-24 08:25 pm
rionaleonhart) wrote2020-05-24 08:25 pm
Fanfiction: Binding Contract (FFVIII/FFX)
Finally finished the Squall-as-Yuna's-guardian fic! I've wanted to write this for so long.
I can't believe I've got fics titled Warranty Terms, Tenancy Agreement and Binding Contract.
Title: Binding Contract
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII/Final Fantasy X
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: slight Squall/Yuna hints
Wordcount: 3,100
Summary: Squall is contracted to be Yuna's guardian.
“You’re the one from SeeD?” the summoner asks.
Squall nods. “I’m contracted to guard you until the end of your pilgrimage.” However that comes. Pilgrimages can sometimes end well for the world, but they never end well for the summoner.
“Thank you. I’m Yuna.” He knows that already, of course. “They didn’t tell me your name.”
“Squall,” Squall says, after a moment.
She bows. “I’m glad to meet you, Squall. My other guardians already know each other, but please don’t feel excluded. You’re one of us.”
Squall would prefer to feel excluded, in all honesty. He’s been contracted for battle, not companionship. “You don’t need to talk to me. I’m fine on my own.”
Yuna pauses. “I don’t... need to talk to you?”
“You’re planning to sacrifice yourself, right?” Squall asks. “You’ll want to spend your time with the people you know. You can forget about me. I’m just a sword.”
Yuna frowns. “I don’t... I don’t see it as a burden, getting to know new people. It’s a pleasure.”
As far as Squall’s concerned, it’s a burden. For both of them. She shouldn’t be wasting her time trying to have a conversation with him; she doesn’t have enough time as it is.
“I’m asking you to risk your life for me,” Yuna says. “I don’t want to treat you like furniture.”
“You’re paying. I’m not asking you for anything more than that.”
“Well, I appreciate your services,” Yuna says, after a moment.
Squall nods.
-
Yuna and her guardians stop for a picnic lunch on the beach, before the ship is due to leave Besaid. Squall has rations; he’ll eat later. He takes the time to inspect the docked ship, check whether their assigned quarters look easy to defend.
He turns sharply when he hears someone else come into the room. It’s the summoner.
“You’re planning to sleep?” he asks. “I can guard the door.”
Yuna shakes her head. “Just wondering where you were. You’re not going to eat with us?”
Apparently he hasn’t made himself clear enough.
Squall braces himself. This won’t be an enjoyable conversation – not that he typically expects conversations to be enjoyable – but it’s best to get it out of the way now. He needs to keep clients at a distance; it’s true when his failure to protect them will mean their death, and it’s doubly true when his success will mean exactly the same thing. He can’t act as if they’re friends when he’s going to have to watch her die.
“I’m a SeeD,” he says. “I’ll protect you as your guardian because it’s in my contract, but you need to understand that this is a professional relationship.”
Yuna looks a little taken aback. But then she begins to smile, very slightly. “SeeDs don’t need to eat?”
Squall hesitates. What does she want him to say?
“You know,” Yuna says, “it says in your contract that I should provide you with food expenses for the pilgrimage. It’ll probably be easiest if you eat with us.”
-
“Ah,” Lulu says, as Squall approaches. “He deigns to sit with us.”
“Lulu,” Yuna says, a little reproachfully, sitting beside her on the sand.
Squall’s instinct is to leave, but he takes a seat next to Kimahri, in the shade. As Kimahri has yet to say a word to him, it seems the best way to minimise his risk of being engaged in conversation.
“How do you expect him to guard you if he refuses to be anywhere near you?” Lulu asks.
“He fought fiends for us on the way here,” Yuna says. “He kept going ahead to clear the path.”
“He kept going ahead,” Lulu repeats. “He didn’t stay to defend you and fight with the group. He went ahead so he could fight alone, be outnumbered and get himself killed.”
“Hey, if that was his plan, doesn’t look like he managed it,” Wakka says. “Give the guy a chance, huh?”
Lulu shoots Wakka a sharp look. “It’s spineless to pretend you like him now that he can hear you.”
“Squall,” Yuna says, focusing on him. He wasn’t expecting it. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to hear us talking about you as if you’re not here.”
If she hadn’t told him to come here, he wouldn’t have had to hear it. “Whatever. It’s not my business if you need to talk about how to use your resources.”
“Would you be willing to stay closer to the group and fight with us?” Yuna asks.
“I’ll follow your orders,” Squall says.
“You see?” Yuna says, looking at Lulu. “We just had to ask.”
-
They’re scattered in the attack on Operation Mi’ihen.
Squall finds Yuna lying in the surf, barely conscious, breathing shallow. He drags her up onto dry land, props her up with her back against a rock. She breaks into a coughing fit, hacking water out of her lungs.
She’s usually so poised and polite and careful. It feels like there’s a kind of honesty in watching her struggle for breath, something he hasn’t seen in her before. Squall’s not sure he’s comfortable with it.
Not that discomfort matters much now, in the aftermath, amongst the bodies.
She looks around, her breathing coming faster now, unsteady. “Oh...”
“I can look for the others,” Squall says.
Yuna catches at his sleeve. “They’ll be looking for us. Please don’t go.”
She says us. They won’t be looking for Squall; they’ll be looking for her. Not that it makes a difference, really, if she’s asking him to stay here.
Squall nods wordlessly.
Yuna looks to her left. More shore visible in that direction, more bodies. She shudders. “How many?”
How many dead? He wouldn’t have had time to count, even if he’d wanted to; he was looking for his client. Enough to need counting. “I don’t know.”
She draws her knees up to her chest, her skirt bunching into wet, heavy folds around her ankles. The air is warm, it feels charged with electricity, even though the operation is over. This place always feels like it’s on the verge of a thunderstorm. It’s just as well they’re not in Macalania, or hypothermia would be a bigger concern than fiends right now.
“I should have tried to stop it,” she says, softly.
The operation? “How would you have stopped it?”
She shakes her head. “I should have tried. We knew there would be casualties. I just – I kept thinking, if I didn’t have to be the one to defeat Sin—”
She drops her head, breathes for a moment through her open mouth. He’s never heard her express regret about dying before. It doesn’t feel like he should be the one to hear it. One of her other guardians should be here, one of the friends who grew up alongside her.
He could try to find someone. But she asked him not to leave, and he’s here to carry out his client’s orders.
“I was selfish,” she says, barely audible.
What does he say? When someone dies in the fight against Sin, where does the responsibility lie? When Braska fell, did other summoners feel responsible for letting him beat them to the goal, being slow enough to see another Calm?
Did his guardians feel responsible for escorting him to his death?
He could ask Auron. He doesn’t know if he wants to hear the answer.
This operation was going to happen, whether they were here or not. It doesn’t feel like it should be Yuna’s burden.
“The Crusaders made the same decision you did,” Squall says at last. “They weren’t fighting to save you. They were fighting to defeat Sin.”
Yuna tips her head back against the rock. Closes her eyes.
“Thank you,” she says, after a moment.
He doesn’t know if he’s helped. It doesn’t feel like he’s helped.
She opens her eyes. “Okay,” she says. “We need to make sure the others are okay.”
-
Yuna is abducted on the Moonflow crossing.
Wakka dives after her in an instant. And Squall can only grip the side of the shoopuf basket, staring down into the water.
He isn’t trained in underwater combat. He can’t hold his breath for long; it’s a skill you cultivate if you’re a Blitzball player, not a mercenary. It’s his job to protect Yuna, and she was just taken from right in front of him, and he’s completely helpless.
Lulu is cursing viciously, struggling to shed the enormous dress that would make it impossible for her to swim, and it filters through to Squall: it doesn’t matter if he knows he’ll fail. He has to try, or he’ll always live with the knowledge that he did nothing.
He strips off his jacket and shoes, and, after a second’s hesitation, his trousers. Jumps into the river. He’s been feeling the absence of his gunblade, the machina weapon he uses when working with Al Bhed clients, but right now he’s glad that he’s forced to bring an ordinary sword on pilgrimages; he doubts Revolver would take well to the water.
In the end, he’s almost no help. Wakka does most of the work. But Yuna is back with them; she’s safe.
She’s safe, Squall thinks, stumbling onto the far bank, soaking and exhausted.
She’s safe, he thinks, for now.
-
Maester Seymour has left for Macalania Temple, apparently, but he left instructions for Yuna and her guardians to be given rooms at his manor for the night. Which makes sense, Squall supposes, given that the Maester has proposed to her.
Squall doesn’t sleep well.
He’s the first awake, and he slips outside to give his sword a thorough cleaning, make sure it’s not still feeling the effects of its encounter with the Moonflow. It doesn’t need as much maintenance as his gunblade, but he can’t neglect it.
Rikku’s offered to ‘improve’ it. He’s not sure he trusts her.
The door of the manor opens, and he looks up. He’s expecting Kimahri or Auron, both early risers, and both willing to sit in silence, which makes them easy company to endure. Or perhaps Rikku, who hasn’t been with them long enough for Squall to get an idea of when she wakes up. If it’s Rikku, she’ll probably want to talk.
It’s Lulu.
It’s difficult to know how to behave around Lulu. She’s formidable and intelligent and Squall respects her, but she also makes no secret of the fact that she doesn’t like or trust him. He gives her a wary nod.
Lulu folds her arms and watches him work. There’s a moment’s silence before she speaks.
“Yuna is going to ask your opinion on whether she should marry Maester Seymour.”
What? “Why would she ask me?”
Squall may not be an expert in reading people, but he knows enough of Lulu to know there’s no warmth in her smile. “As much as I hate to interrupt youthful daydreams, it’s nothing to do with you in particular. She is consulting all her guardians.”
“I won’t be able to give her good advice.”
“It doesn’t especially matter,” Lulu says. “Yuna has already made her decision.”
Squall looks at her for a moment, frowning. “Then why is she asking?”
“She hasn’t yet realised that she’s decided,” Lulu says. “And she wants to give us a chance to speak. But I know Yuna.”
“What is she going to do?” Squall asks.
Lulu raises her eyebrows. “Are you capable of taking an interest in other people after all?”
Every conversation with Lulu feels like picking his way through knives. “I’ll need to know.”
“Of course. Taking a detour for a wedding would extend your contract.” Lulu tosses her braids back. “Your services will be required for a little longer, I suspect. But you’ll have your money, and of course that’s the important thing.”
-
Yuna draws Squall aside at the travel agency in the Thunder Plains.
“I wanted to ask,” she says. “What would you think of me if I married Maester Seymour?”
From what Lulu said to him, Squall was expecting to be asked whether he thought Yuna should accept the proposal. What would he think of her? That’s a different question.
“It’s your decision,” he says. “It wouldn’t be any of my business.”
“You wouldn’t have any opinion?”
Squall shrugs. What is he supposed to say? “If I did, it wouldn’t matter.”
“It would matter to me,” Yuna says.
Squall hesitates. “Why?”
“You’re my guardian,” Yuna says. “Is it really... so strange to you, that someone might value your opinion?”
He’d be comfortable giving his opinion on a battle, or a tactical operation. But a political decision? Or a romantic decision? He’s not even sure which one this would be.
“Are you in love with him?” he asks.
“Would it be... shameful of me, do you think?” Yuna asks. “To marry someone I’m not in love with? Would I be deceiving everyone?”
“You’d be doing it to make people happy, wouldn’t you?” He doesn’t really understand it, but people seem really excited by the prospect of a wedding.
Yuna nods. “You’re right. That’s the important thing. I need to remember.”
He... doesn’t know how to express this, exactly. He doesn’t think there’s anything shameful about it, if she’s the only one she’d be hurting with her decision. But he doesn’t see why she thinks she has to hurt herself.
He can’t find the words, and it goes unsaid.
-
“You know Yunie’s still planning to marry Seymour?” Rikku demands. “With what we know about him? Like how he’s super evil and he tried to kill us?”
It’s not a decision Squall understands. But it’s none of his business. “It’ll delay the pilgrimage. I would have thought you’d be in favour.”
“Okay,” Rikku says, “there is a whole huge middle ground between finishing the pilgrimage and marrying that guy. And she’s still going to finish the pilgrimage; it’s just that she’ll be unhappy too!” She wraps her arms around herself. “Ugh, what if Seymour comes with us?”
Squall doesn’t especially like the prospect either. But... “It’s the decision she’s made.”
“Don’t you care?” Rikku demands. “She’s your friend!”
She’s not my friend, Squall thinks. She’s my client.
“She’s going to summon the Final Aeon,” he says, and Rikku flinches. “Why does it make a difference if she marries Seymour now?”
Rikku stares at him. “Because she’s not dead yet!”
Squall tries to speak and can’t. He swallows.
“Ugh,” Rikku says. She throws her hands up. “Fine. I’ll talk to her.”
-
They make camp just outside the ruins of Zanarkand. Squall volunteers for the first watch. He’s supposed to wake Auron to take over in two hours.
He doesn’t intend to. He’s planning to stay awake, keeping the fiends at bay, until he’s on the verge of passing out. There are too many thoughts waiting for him in his bed.
A sound, long past midnight. He turns.
It’s Yuna. A pyrefly winding itself around her arm, like it can tell she’ll be joining them soon.
“You’re not on the watch schedule,” Squall says.
Yuna tilts her head. “You should be asleep as well, shouldn’t you?”
Squall doesn’t really have anything to say to that.
He’s standing at the top of a short slope, to give himself a good vantage point. Yuna walks up to stand beside him, looks out at the wreckage of the city.
She sighs. “We’ve made it, haven’t we?”
He doesn’t answer.
“It’s... hard to talk about fear with the others,” she says, quietly. “Because most of them have known me so long. I don’t want to hurt them.”
She doesn’t think it hurts Squall, knowing she’s afraid of the fate they’re leading her to?
Why should it? He’s just a sword.
“I don’t want to hurt you either,” Yuna says, turning to look at him, and for a strange moment it almost feels like she can hear his thoughts. “I just... I feel like I should say something honest, while I’m still here. Just once.” A pause. “Maybe that’s selfish.”
She’s not dead yet, Rikku said.
Squall’s spent this entire journey thinking of Yuna as dead already. It’s easier that way.
She isn’t, and Rikku’s made it harder to pretend that away. Yuna is looking at him, alive and breathing. A living, thinking person, and they’re clearing the path ahead of her so she can walk to her death.
“If you turn around and start walking the other way,” he says, “I’ll keep guarding you.”
Yuna’s eyes widen, just slightly. She brings a hand up to her chest. “You would...?”
A long silence. The pyreflies drift around them.
“You would hate me,” Yuna says. “Anyone would hate me.”
“I’m not here to bring the Calm,” Squall says. “I’m a mercenary. I’m here because I’ve been paid. If your goal changes, it makes no difference to me.”
“Squall,” she says, her voice barely audible.
He watches her breathe. Still breathing, for now.
“I have to keep going,” she says, eventually.
He looks away. “I know.”
-
One of them is going to have to become the Final Aeon, and the Final Aeon will become Sin. It sits hard and heavy in Squall’s chest. But Yuna’s come this far, she’s been prepared to sacrifice herself all along to give the world some peace, and her friends will probably be ready to sacrifice themselves to help her achieve that dream.
Squall looks around at the other guardians. He looks at Yuna.
“I’ll do it,” he says.
“No,” Yuna says. Her voice wavers. “I can’t ask any of you to...”
“It’s in my contract,” Squall says. He thinks about life as Sin. If he’s lucky, maybe the next summoner will come along quickly. “I’m supposed to protect and support the summoner on her pilgrimage to the best of my ability.”
Yuna actually laughs a little. “Squall,” she says, “thank you.” She straightens her back, and when she speaks her voice is firm and steady. “But no.”
-
“Is it really over?” Yuna asks, quietly.
They’re standing on the deck of the Fahrenheit. Squall. Kimahri. Rikku. Lulu and Wakka. The empty space where Auron should be.
Yuna, alive.
Is it over? It doesn’t feel like it can be. Sin is a fact of life, an endless cycle; they’ve all known it as long as they’ve been breathing. Could they really be fortunate enough to see it permanently defeated in their lifetimes?
Maybe it’ll still come back somehow. Maybe Squall is dreaming.
But right now—
Right now, Yuna is still alive.
“Squall,” she says, turning to him. She looks exhausted from crying, over her aeons, over Sir Auron, but she smiles at him with a kind of fierce determination. “I think we should celebrate. I know your contract will be over. I’ll – I’ll pay you, if you like, to have a meal with us.”
Squall laughs, just a little, and brings a hand to his lips, startled; he wasn’t expecting to. Yuna laughs at his reaction, and for a moment Squall can almost believe in their victory, he can almost reach out and touch it.
“You don’t need to pay,” he says. “I’ll come.”
I can't believe I've got fics titled Warranty Terms, Tenancy Agreement and Binding Contract.
Title: Binding Contract
Fandom: Final Fantasy VIII/Final Fantasy X
Rating: PG-13
Pairing: slight Squall/Yuna hints
Wordcount: 3,100
Summary: Squall is contracted to be Yuna's guardian.
“You’re the one from SeeD?” the summoner asks.
Squall nods. “I’m contracted to guard you until the end of your pilgrimage.” However that comes. Pilgrimages can sometimes end well for the world, but they never end well for the summoner.
“Thank you. I’m Yuna.” He knows that already, of course. “They didn’t tell me your name.”
“Squall,” Squall says, after a moment.
She bows. “I’m glad to meet you, Squall. My other guardians already know each other, but please don’t feel excluded. You’re one of us.”
Squall would prefer to feel excluded, in all honesty. He’s been contracted for battle, not companionship. “You don’t need to talk to me. I’m fine on my own.”
Yuna pauses. “I don’t... need to talk to you?”
“You’re planning to sacrifice yourself, right?” Squall asks. “You’ll want to spend your time with the people you know. You can forget about me. I’m just a sword.”
Yuna frowns. “I don’t... I don’t see it as a burden, getting to know new people. It’s a pleasure.”
As far as Squall’s concerned, it’s a burden. For both of them. She shouldn’t be wasting her time trying to have a conversation with him; she doesn’t have enough time as it is.
“I’m asking you to risk your life for me,” Yuna says. “I don’t want to treat you like furniture.”
“You’re paying. I’m not asking you for anything more than that.”
“Well, I appreciate your services,” Yuna says, after a moment.
Squall nods.
Yuna and her guardians stop for a picnic lunch on the beach, before the ship is due to leave Besaid. Squall has rations; he’ll eat later. He takes the time to inspect the docked ship, check whether their assigned quarters look easy to defend.
He turns sharply when he hears someone else come into the room. It’s the summoner.
“You’re planning to sleep?” he asks. “I can guard the door.”
Yuna shakes her head. “Just wondering where you were. You’re not going to eat with us?”
Apparently he hasn’t made himself clear enough.
Squall braces himself. This won’t be an enjoyable conversation – not that he typically expects conversations to be enjoyable – but it’s best to get it out of the way now. He needs to keep clients at a distance; it’s true when his failure to protect them will mean their death, and it’s doubly true when his success will mean exactly the same thing. He can’t act as if they’re friends when he’s going to have to watch her die.
“I’m a SeeD,” he says. “I’ll protect you as your guardian because it’s in my contract, but you need to understand that this is a professional relationship.”
Yuna looks a little taken aback. But then she begins to smile, very slightly. “SeeDs don’t need to eat?”
Squall hesitates. What does she want him to say?
“You know,” Yuna says, “it says in your contract that I should provide you with food expenses for the pilgrimage. It’ll probably be easiest if you eat with us.”
“Ah,” Lulu says, as Squall approaches. “He deigns to sit with us.”
“Lulu,” Yuna says, a little reproachfully, sitting beside her on the sand.
Squall’s instinct is to leave, but he takes a seat next to Kimahri, in the shade. As Kimahri has yet to say a word to him, it seems the best way to minimise his risk of being engaged in conversation.
“How do you expect him to guard you if he refuses to be anywhere near you?” Lulu asks.
“He fought fiends for us on the way here,” Yuna says. “He kept going ahead to clear the path.”
“He kept going ahead,” Lulu repeats. “He didn’t stay to defend you and fight with the group. He went ahead so he could fight alone, be outnumbered and get himself killed.”
“Hey, if that was his plan, doesn’t look like he managed it,” Wakka says. “Give the guy a chance, huh?”
Lulu shoots Wakka a sharp look. “It’s spineless to pretend you like him now that he can hear you.”
“Squall,” Yuna says, focusing on him. He wasn’t expecting it. “I’m sorry. You shouldn’t have to hear us talking about you as if you’re not here.”
If she hadn’t told him to come here, he wouldn’t have had to hear it. “Whatever. It’s not my business if you need to talk about how to use your resources.”
“Would you be willing to stay closer to the group and fight with us?” Yuna asks.
“I’ll follow your orders,” Squall says.
“You see?” Yuna says, looking at Lulu. “We just had to ask.”
They’re scattered in the attack on Operation Mi’ihen.
Squall finds Yuna lying in the surf, barely conscious, breathing shallow. He drags her up onto dry land, props her up with her back against a rock. She breaks into a coughing fit, hacking water out of her lungs.
She’s usually so poised and polite and careful. It feels like there’s a kind of honesty in watching her struggle for breath, something he hasn’t seen in her before. Squall’s not sure he’s comfortable with it.
Not that discomfort matters much now, in the aftermath, amongst the bodies.
She looks around, her breathing coming faster now, unsteady. “Oh...”
“I can look for the others,” Squall says.
Yuna catches at his sleeve. “They’ll be looking for us. Please don’t go.”
She says us. They won’t be looking for Squall; they’ll be looking for her. Not that it makes a difference, really, if she’s asking him to stay here.
Squall nods wordlessly.
Yuna looks to her left. More shore visible in that direction, more bodies. She shudders. “How many?”
How many dead? He wouldn’t have had time to count, even if he’d wanted to; he was looking for his client. Enough to need counting. “I don’t know.”
She draws her knees up to her chest, her skirt bunching into wet, heavy folds around her ankles. The air is warm, it feels charged with electricity, even though the operation is over. This place always feels like it’s on the verge of a thunderstorm. It’s just as well they’re not in Macalania, or hypothermia would be a bigger concern than fiends right now.
“I should have tried to stop it,” she says, softly.
The operation? “How would you have stopped it?”
She shakes her head. “I should have tried. We knew there would be casualties. I just – I kept thinking, if I didn’t have to be the one to defeat Sin—”
She drops her head, breathes for a moment through her open mouth. He’s never heard her express regret about dying before. It doesn’t feel like he should be the one to hear it. One of her other guardians should be here, one of the friends who grew up alongside her.
He could try to find someone. But she asked him not to leave, and he’s here to carry out his client’s orders.
“I was selfish,” she says, barely audible.
What does he say? When someone dies in the fight against Sin, where does the responsibility lie? When Braska fell, did other summoners feel responsible for letting him beat them to the goal, being slow enough to see another Calm?
Did his guardians feel responsible for escorting him to his death?
He could ask Auron. He doesn’t know if he wants to hear the answer.
This operation was going to happen, whether they were here or not. It doesn’t feel like it should be Yuna’s burden.
“The Crusaders made the same decision you did,” Squall says at last. “They weren’t fighting to save you. They were fighting to defeat Sin.”
Yuna tips her head back against the rock. Closes her eyes.
“Thank you,” she says, after a moment.
He doesn’t know if he’s helped. It doesn’t feel like he’s helped.
She opens her eyes. “Okay,” she says. “We need to make sure the others are okay.”
Yuna is abducted on the Moonflow crossing.
Wakka dives after her in an instant. And Squall can only grip the side of the shoopuf basket, staring down into the water.
He isn’t trained in underwater combat. He can’t hold his breath for long; it’s a skill you cultivate if you’re a Blitzball player, not a mercenary. It’s his job to protect Yuna, and she was just taken from right in front of him, and he’s completely helpless.
Lulu is cursing viciously, struggling to shed the enormous dress that would make it impossible for her to swim, and it filters through to Squall: it doesn’t matter if he knows he’ll fail. He has to try, or he’ll always live with the knowledge that he did nothing.
He strips off his jacket and shoes, and, after a second’s hesitation, his trousers. Jumps into the river. He’s been feeling the absence of his gunblade, the machina weapon he uses when working with Al Bhed clients, but right now he’s glad that he’s forced to bring an ordinary sword on pilgrimages; he doubts Revolver would take well to the water.
In the end, he’s almost no help. Wakka does most of the work. But Yuna is back with them; she’s safe.
She’s safe, Squall thinks, stumbling onto the far bank, soaking and exhausted.
She’s safe, he thinks, for now.
Maester Seymour has left for Macalania Temple, apparently, but he left instructions for Yuna and her guardians to be given rooms at his manor for the night. Which makes sense, Squall supposes, given that the Maester has proposed to her.
Squall doesn’t sleep well.
He’s the first awake, and he slips outside to give his sword a thorough cleaning, make sure it’s not still feeling the effects of its encounter with the Moonflow. It doesn’t need as much maintenance as his gunblade, but he can’t neglect it.
Rikku’s offered to ‘improve’ it. He’s not sure he trusts her.
The door of the manor opens, and he looks up. He’s expecting Kimahri or Auron, both early risers, and both willing to sit in silence, which makes them easy company to endure. Or perhaps Rikku, who hasn’t been with them long enough for Squall to get an idea of when she wakes up. If it’s Rikku, she’ll probably want to talk.
It’s Lulu.
It’s difficult to know how to behave around Lulu. She’s formidable and intelligent and Squall respects her, but she also makes no secret of the fact that she doesn’t like or trust him. He gives her a wary nod.
Lulu folds her arms and watches him work. There’s a moment’s silence before she speaks.
“Yuna is going to ask your opinion on whether she should marry Maester Seymour.”
What? “Why would she ask me?”
Squall may not be an expert in reading people, but he knows enough of Lulu to know there’s no warmth in her smile. “As much as I hate to interrupt youthful daydreams, it’s nothing to do with you in particular. She is consulting all her guardians.”
“I won’t be able to give her good advice.”
“It doesn’t especially matter,” Lulu says. “Yuna has already made her decision.”
Squall looks at her for a moment, frowning. “Then why is she asking?”
“She hasn’t yet realised that she’s decided,” Lulu says. “And she wants to give us a chance to speak. But I know Yuna.”
“What is she going to do?” Squall asks.
Lulu raises her eyebrows. “Are you capable of taking an interest in other people after all?”
Every conversation with Lulu feels like picking his way through knives. “I’ll need to know.”
“Of course. Taking a detour for a wedding would extend your contract.” Lulu tosses her braids back. “Your services will be required for a little longer, I suspect. But you’ll have your money, and of course that’s the important thing.”
Yuna draws Squall aside at the travel agency in the Thunder Plains.
“I wanted to ask,” she says. “What would you think of me if I married Maester Seymour?”
From what Lulu said to him, Squall was expecting to be asked whether he thought Yuna should accept the proposal. What would he think of her? That’s a different question.
“It’s your decision,” he says. “It wouldn’t be any of my business.”
“You wouldn’t have any opinion?”
Squall shrugs. What is he supposed to say? “If I did, it wouldn’t matter.”
“It would matter to me,” Yuna says.
Squall hesitates. “Why?”
“You’re my guardian,” Yuna says. “Is it really... so strange to you, that someone might value your opinion?”
He’d be comfortable giving his opinion on a battle, or a tactical operation. But a political decision? Or a romantic decision? He’s not even sure which one this would be.
“Are you in love with him?” he asks.
“Would it be... shameful of me, do you think?” Yuna asks. “To marry someone I’m not in love with? Would I be deceiving everyone?”
“You’d be doing it to make people happy, wouldn’t you?” He doesn’t really understand it, but people seem really excited by the prospect of a wedding.
Yuna nods. “You’re right. That’s the important thing. I need to remember.”
He... doesn’t know how to express this, exactly. He doesn’t think there’s anything shameful about it, if she’s the only one she’d be hurting with her decision. But he doesn’t see why she thinks she has to hurt herself.
He can’t find the words, and it goes unsaid.
“You know Yunie’s still planning to marry Seymour?” Rikku demands. “With what we know about him? Like how he’s super evil and he tried to kill us?”
It’s not a decision Squall understands. But it’s none of his business. “It’ll delay the pilgrimage. I would have thought you’d be in favour.”
“Okay,” Rikku says, “there is a whole huge middle ground between finishing the pilgrimage and marrying that guy. And she’s still going to finish the pilgrimage; it’s just that she’ll be unhappy too!” She wraps her arms around herself. “Ugh, what if Seymour comes with us?”
Squall doesn’t especially like the prospect either. But... “It’s the decision she’s made.”
“Don’t you care?” Rikku demands. “She’s your friend!”
She’s not my friend, Squall thinks. She’s my client.
“She’s going to summon the Final Aeon,” he says, and Rikku flinches. “Why does it make a difference if she marries Seymour now?”
Rikku stares at him. “Because she’s not dead yet!”
Squall tries to speak and can’t. He swallows.
“Ugh,” Rikku says. She throws her hands up. “Fine. I’ll talk to her.”
They make camp just outside the ruins of Zanarkand. Squall volunteers for the first watch. He’s supposed to wake Auron to take over in two hours.
He doesn’t intend to. He’s planning to stay awake, keeping the fiends at bay, until he’s on the verge of passing out. There are too many thoughts waiting for him in his bed.
A sound, long past midnight. He turns.
It’s Yuna. A pyrefly winding itself around her arm, like it can tell she’ll be joining them soon.
“You’re not on the watch schedule,” Squall says.
Yuna tilts her head. “You should be asleep as well, shouldn’t you?”
Squall doesn’t really have anything to say to that.
He’s standing at the top of a short slope, to give himself a good vantage point. Yuna walks up to stand beside him, looks out at the wreckage of the city.
She sighs. “We’ve made it, haven’t we?”
He doesn’t answer.
“It’s... hard to talk about fear with the others,” she says, quietly. “Because most of them have known me so long. I don’t want to hurt them.”
She doesn’t think it hurts Squall, knowing she’s afraid of the fate they’re leading her to?
Why should it? He’s just a sword.
“I don’t want to hurt you either,” Yuna says, turning to look at him, and for a strange moment it almost feels like she can hear his thoughts. “I just... I feel like I should say something honest, while I’m still here. Just once.” A pause. “Maybe that’s selfish.”
She’s not dead yet, Rikku said.
Squall’s spent this entire journey thinking of Yuna as dead already. It’s easier that way.
She isn’t, and Rikku’s made it harder to pretend that away. Yuna is looking at him, alive and breathing. A living, thinking person, and they’re clearing the path ahead of her so she can walk to her death.
“If you turn around and start walking the other way,” he says, “I’ll keep guarding you.”
Yuna’s eyes widen, just slightly. She brings a hand up to her chest. “You would...?”
A long silence. The pyreflies drift around them.
“You would hate me,” Yuna says. “Anyone would hate me.”
“I’m not here to bring the Calm,” Squall says. “I’m a mercenary. I’m here because I’ve been paid. If your goal changes, it makes no difference to me.”
“Squall,” she says, her voice barely audible.
He watches her breathe. Still breathing, for now.
“I have to keep going,” she says, eventually.
He looks away. “I know.”
One of them is going to have to become the Final Aeon, and the Final Aeon will become Sin. It sits hard and heavy in Squall’s chest. But Yuna’s come this far, she’s been prepared to sacrifice herself all along to give the world some peace, and her friends will probably be ready to sacrifice themselves to help her achieve that dream.
Squall looks around at the other guardians. He looks at Yuna.
“I’ll do it,” he says.
“No,” Yuna says. Her voice wavers. “I can’t ask any of you to...”
“It’s in my contract,” Squall says. He thinks about life as Sin. If he’s lucky, maybe the next summoner will come along quickly. “I’m supposed to protect and support the summoner on her pilgrimage to the best of my ability.”
Yuna actually laughs a little. “Squall,” she says, “thank you.” She straightens her back, and when she speaks her voice is firm and steady. “But no.”
“Is it really over?” Yuna asks, quietly.
They’re standing on the deck of the Fahrenheit. Squall. Kimahri. Rikku. Lulu and Wakka. The empty space where Auron should be.
Yuna, alive.
Is it over? It doesn’t feel like it can be. Sin is a fact of life, an endless cycle; they’ve all known it as long as they’ve been breathing. Could they really be fortunate enough to see it permanently defeated in their lifetimes?
Maybe it’ll still come back somehow. Maybe Squall is dreaming.
But right now—
Right now, Yuna is still alive.
“Squall,” she says, turning to him. She looks exhausted from crying, over her aeons, over Sir Auron, but she smiles at him with a kind of fierce determination. “I think we should celebrate. I know your contract will be over. I’ll – I’ll pay you, if you like, to have a meal with us.”
Squall laughs, just a little, and brings a hand to his lips, startled; he wasn’t expecting to. Yuna laughs at his reaction, and for a moment Squall can almost believe in their victory, he can almost reach out and touch it.
“You don’t need to pay,” he says. “I’ll come.”
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As Kimahri has yet to say a word to him, it seems the best way to minimise his risk of being engaged in conversation.
This made me laugh out loud. Also, the conversation with Lulu is great, exactly as sharp as you'd expect from her.
And I love the ending. That's the sweetest part, seeing him soften up a little, actually get invested in the party and what they've achieved. I could go for a version of FFX with Squall as the protagonist, it works surprisingly well.
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I love how Squall's actions at the beginning are basically motivated by trying to avoid talking to people.
The most relatable motivation. I'm much better at talking to people now, but I identified very strongly with Squall's inability to when I first played Final Fantasy VIII.
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Squall offering to guard Yuna even if she wanted to go back reminded me of when he said he would be Rinoa's "knight" even if the world turned against her, and was a really nice way to show how he grew to care for Yuna.
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Squall offering to guard Yuna even if she wanted to go back reminded me of when he said he would be Rinoa's "knight" even if the world turned against her
I was actually thinking of that 'even if you end up as the world's enemy' line when I wrote that scene, so I'm glad it could bring that to mind!
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I'm reading many things about FFX/X-2 lately that I feel like I should replay the entire series! :P
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