Path of a Summoner

Amalthea leaned heavily against the wall. Her instructor spared her no mercy, evidenced by the many bruises on her arms and legs from the wooden practice swords. Her body ached from strenuous training that had run so long, she had missed dinner.

The priests ate after the other youths in Yevon’s training program, and they had offered her food from their own table, and commented that Mobius hadn’t yet eaten either. Apparently he had yet to finish his own training for the day. She fixed a plate for him as well, to save him the trip.

She nudged aside the curtain of the instruction room with her back, balancing her a tray of food in each hand, and a practice sword under each arm.

“Try again,” said Mobius’ instructor. His posture was stiff and strict, his hands poised together elegantly in a way that made her feel like she needed to unclench her jaw. “Your posture is atrocious. Clear your mind, start again.”

She set Mobius’ food down on a nearby shelf for him to take when he had a chance.

His instructor eyed her with an unimpressed look. “Is that for him? I’m sorry to say he won’t be eating until he’s completed this sending. You might as well throw it away or eat it yourself, he won’t be getting to it anytime soon at this rate.”

Mobius was clearly exhausted. His hair was pinned out of his face. The reason his posture was off was because he seemed to have pulled something in his shoulder, trying not to move his arm too much as he favored his stance. Before him were a few scattered pyreflies which he was facing with his staff extended, trying to do… something.

He had yet to successfully perform a sending. He couldn’t even get them to move, while his instructor, a former summoner himself, could do with no more effort than it took to boil an egg.

“You must be able to feel the pyreflies,” said his instructor. “They ebb and flow like a tide, they are fluid. Let yourself be part of that flow, give it a push. Try harder.”

Mobius stopped, shaking his head. His staff fell from his hands, clattering to the floor as he placed his hands on the sides of his face, hunching over as he groaned from stress. “I can’t do it! I’ve been at this all day, I can’t do it!”

The instructor began to berate him, shouting that he nearly had it that morning--he’d seen him move them once before, he could handle a sending--but Amalthea didn’t hear.

She was too busy watching the pyreflies, a frown setting on her expression as she peered at them from across the room. Something in them was changing, the wisps were coming together, becoming a solid form in a flash of something that looked like the sun reflecting off of water.

There was a snarling, a glimmer of teeth and claws as it dropped to the floor.

In an instant, Amalthea was at his side, a sword in each hand as she lunged at the beast. The wooden blades were useless as swords, but perfect to use as a light bludgeon. The fiend was forcibly vanished before it even had a chance to reform, and the instructor sent it away before it had another chance.

The food Amalthea had been holding was splattered against the floor, the dishes intact, but devoid of their contents. She sighed heavily, then fell to her knees.

“Excellent work protecting your summoner, Amalthea,” The man didn’t bother to crack a smile. “You could learn something from her, Mobius. She takes her role as a guardian seriously. I would appreciate it if you could do the same as a summoner.”

Mobius looked away from her, staring at the floor angrily. He said nothing. She knew he could do better, if he wasn’t being worked so hard. No break, no food or drink, or even a chance to rest until he completed his task? Of course he couldn’t manage it.

“We are finished for the day,” said the instructor, moving towards the door. “That fiend was all I had left for you to practice on, so I will have to procure another subject before we can begin again. Perhaps with some rest, you’ll retain some of my teaching.”

“Don’t bother sharing that with him, Amalthea,” he added, pointing at the plate that was still intact. “Yevon does not give to those who do not put in any effort on their part to participate in our society.”

He exited the instruction room, leaving Amalthea and Mobius alone to clean up the mess she’d made.

Mobius extended his good arm to her to help her back up, but still didn’t make eye contact with her. She could see from the corners of his mouth that he was scowling.

“Go back to your room,” she said. She looked down at the food on the floor. “I’ll clean this up… Then I’ll bring your food to you, so you don’t get in trouble. I think one of the priests was sick in bed today, so they have a lot of leftovers. I’ll grab something for myself so we can eat together.”

He nodded his head as he collected his staff, and then excused himself from the room.

As she started to clean up the tray, she heard something slam against a hard surface, as if someone had thrown something at the wall.

The priests were far from her favorite people in the world, but they said that teenagers went through periods like this, where they acted out when they were frustrated with the world. Amalthea didn’t know a lot of things, but she could tell when Mobius needed to be given some space. Perhaps he’d cool off by the time she made it back to his room with dinner.

That time came more quickly than she expected, and she soon found herself at Mobius’ doorway, carrying two trays once again. She simply told the kitchen staff that Mobius had finished his training for the day, and his instructor had asked her to get his dinner for him. She wasn’t sure why the staff trusted her word on the matter, since the two of them had been causing trouble for the monks since they met, but she guessed that even if they saw through her, they must be taking pity on him.

He did seem to have calmed down a little, staring wistfully out the small window in his room.

Since Yevon had placed them in the care of their training program, they had been given their own rooms, tucked away in a corner of the apprentices’ sleeping quarters. Generally speaking, they were not to be out of their rooms after curfew, but Amalthea and Mobius followed the rules very liberally in the first place.

“Thanks,” he said, though he still wouldn’t look up. “He says it’s your duty, but the adults should be the ones looking out for us.”

Amalthea hummed softly, sitting down on his bed with her tray balanced in her lap. “They’re too hard on you especially. We’re still just kids by Yevon’s standards.”

“We aren’t like other kids,” said Mobius, shaking his head. He turned to her, then sat beside her on the bed, pulling the other tray into his lap. He pulled apart the bread she had brought for her, chewing thoughtfully. “We’re special. We can’t afford to relax like other people our age.”

“That’s just what they tell us,” she said, snorting. “Don’t tell me you think you deserve the way they treat you. Skipping dinner used to be for causing trouble, not for imperfections.”

This time he gave a soft murmur of agreement. “I do think I need the coaching. I’m still not getting any better. I have to learn somehow.”

Amalthea sighed, having to concede in some way. “I guess so. I still don’t think it was fair for him to praise me just because I reacted first. He would have banished the fiend himself if I hadn’t done anything. And he was the one distracting you by yelling at you for nothing, anyway.”

“I can’t say I’m very happy with that either, but it isn’t like it’s your fault. You were just doing your job. I’m grateful, but…” admitted Mobius, looking away again. “I still don’t know anything about being a summoner.” He took a sip from the small goblet she’d brought him, his eyes darkening. “It’s not the first time they’ve wronged me, anyway. When my parents died, they dumped all of my family’s money into their own funds. I couldn’t get out of here if I wanted to.”

“Do you want to?”

Mobius glanced at her for a second as if she’d asked if the sky was blue. “If I could, I’d take my money back and just… leave. Go somewhere far away from Bevelle.”

“We could get a boat, and be just like real pirates,” said Amalthea, snickering. “We can just live on the ship, get a real crew, plundering and pillaging until we retire. And we’ll name the ship… Hyacinth. Like the flowers that grow in the garden.” Her cheeks flushed when he tried to disguise a laugh as a cough. “You try and do better!”

“We’re kind of old to be playing pirate, aren’t we?” he asked. Despite his words, he couldn’t stop grinning. “Going on my pilgrimage will have to be enough for me. At least I’ll finally get away from this place, and I don’t really care where I go as long as it’s away from here.”

As Amalthea opened her mouth, the sound of footsteps came from outside the doorway.

“Do they know you’re here past curfew?” he mouthed to her.

She shook her head quickly, then shoved her tray to the side of the bed, and dove behind him, under the covers of his cot, a not at all convincing human-shaped lump under the blankets now.

The noise from trying to conceal herself probably attracted more attention than they would have if they’d simply held their breath until the person patrolling the hallway passed. Soon after she had hidden, a plump, pleasant looking monk poked his head into the room. He looked down at the two trays from the kitchen, which were both picked over almost thoroughly.

“You were supposed to have your lantern extinguished twenty minutes ago,” he said politely, making no note of Amalthea.

Mobius nodded his head with his mouth pursed like he was hiding something in his mouth. The monk had to go before he became more suspicious than he should already have been. “I was training late until only ten minutes ago. I’ll put it out when I’ve finished eating.”

The monk seemed satisfied with that answer, nodding back to him. “Make sure you return your trays to the kitchen. I don’t want to see any bugs in here.”

“I will,” said Mobius.

The monk said good night to him, then resumed his path down the hallway to check on the other children in the other rooms.

Amalthea waited until the monk’s footsteps faded away to uncover herself without sitting up, staring up at the ceiling. “I was barely hidden at all, I know he saw my leftovers. Why didn’t he say anything?”

“I’ve heard that the Final Aeon is stronger when the bond between the summoner and their guardian is stronger. Maybe they’re… trying to push all of us to make friends as fast as possible.” Mobius shrugged just a little, blowing a piece of her hair out of her face.

“We used to get into a lot more trouble than that,” she said, wrinkling her nose. “They never let us off easy for anything. They still don’t. My footwork might be improving, but I barely notice because my instructor is too good at hitting her mark. I’ve got the bruises to prove it.”

“At least I get to take a break for a couple of days,” murmured Mobius.

She nodded a little, then looked up at the ceiling. “Remember that one time we stole the Maester’s clothes while he was bathing?”

“Malach gave us kitchen duty for a week. He said the son of the orphanage's best benefactors shouldn't be a bad influence to the younger children,” he mumbled. "He said they couldn’t keep making us go to bed without dinner because the other priests were concerned that we were too skinny."

To Amalthea, that conjured up images of a young, once round-faced boy, and a scrawny, defiant little girl sitting in the priest's meeting room as they awaited their scolding. The boy seemed unfazed and took the monk's words with little resistance, while the girl indignantly clung to her departed mother's long scarf, which was a deep sea green and far too long for her tiny body.

When they left the room, the priest sneaked a swig from an unlabeled jar, sighing in relief. Thinking about it, Malach may have had a drinking problem, but he was far from their concerns now that they were older.

“They let us off easy then, but not because they wanted to,” she agreed. “You might be onto something. They’re forcing us together.”

---

 

Everything was happening far, far too quickly, and far, far too much for two untrained soldiers to manage.

Only two days before, Amalthea was informed that they were going to be enlisted in Bevelle’s ranks amidst the chaos Yevon had become. Two of the maesters were dead, Maester Kinoc, and presumably Seymour as well. Word had come from the Ronso that their elder, Maester Kelk Ronso, had been slaughtered with a number of his people by Seymour himself.

The warrior monks and Crusaders had no real leader, and a young acolyte had been placed in charge as a spur of the moment decision. She became stressed out easily when asked to make a decision of her own, which became more than a little crucial when the Grand Maester disappeared as well, leaving no trace of him behind. They were told to presume him to be dead as well.

Only the day before, the entire city of Bevelle had joined each other in singing the holy song of the Fayth, the hymn that all of Spira placed all of their hope in. They didn’t know quite why, but word spread all around the city that Yuna, a young summoner from Besaid, needed all of them to sing in order to defeat Sin.

Amalthea couldn’t fathom why they were going along with her request. It wasn’t so long ago that those within Yevon’s higher branches had heard murmurs of Yuna and her unusually large company committing some great blasphemy, and she had been condemned to wander the canals somewhere beneath the temple. Now they had stood in the circle together, voices raised to the sky in an echoing chorus that could be heard across the map. In that moment, it almost felt like the long history of Spira had been all but a few minutes, a flutter of a butterflies wings. Certainly it hadn’t been a millenium of pain, with only a few brief, intermittent pauses.

Then, Sin came. And then, Sin fell on top of the city. A slow, graceful descent of the reviled beast that ruled the sea and skies of Spira. Perhaps it would be over this time, but no one had time to ponder that, between the buildings it destroyed on the way down, and the monsters roaming the streets.

Sinspawn had poured into the city, terrorizing the crowds that gathered to gawk at the scene and scattering the soldiers--including newly uniformed soldiers, who had no idea how to perform in a unit, as they were now expected to.

Amalthea held the oversized firearm in uncertain hands. It had only one shot, and took some time to reload, and yet she was expected to use it to defeat the waves pouring into the temple? They no longer seemed concerned about the people, and the defense had been shifted towards Yevon itself. The young girl placed in charge of military operations didn’t seem like the kind of person to give such an order, to ignore the cries of people who needed help. Amalthea wondered where the idea had come from in the first place.

The Sinspawn suddenly stopped, and she thought she heard someone call out to cease fire. Not that she had been firing in the first place, too reluctant to use her one chance on only one of the creatures. She nudged Mobius, dropping her gun to the ground.

The man beside her seemed exhausted, as he often appeared. He was a little too thin, and a bit taller than most of the monks, which made him seem sickly, apart from the healthy thickness of his long hair, which was secured in a long braid that ran down the back of his uniform. His shot had already been used earlier, when his nerves got the better of him and he fired too early on the approaching wave of Sinspawn. He did not succeed in hitting anything but the dust in front of the group perched on the long stone steps. He might have taken the time to reload, but they were low on ammunition as well, in the chaos.

“Let’s get out of here,” she had said. “Who cares about Yevon? We’re going to die here, if we don’t run.”

Mobius had protested, but she gave him no time. She knew better than he did how to keep him alive and breathing. They were running through the streets together before their unit’s leader could stop them, their heavy guns left behind.

Murmurs of the great beast’s demise could be heard everywhere, but they paid them no mind. Sin was not to be felled so easily, not here in Bevelle, a far cry from the sacred grassy plains of the Calm Lands, and not without the Final Summoning.

As they ran to the city’s edge, however, something strange began to happen. The Sinspawn before them fell over, each one bursting into a cascade of colors and lights before they even hit the ground.

“They’re disappearing,” she said, breathing. “Did… did they really do it? Is Sin dead?”

“No,” said Mobius, standing up to look for himself. He didn’t feel any better. In fact, he sounded miserable. “You can’t kill Sin. It always comes back.”

Amalthea didn’t think he sounded too sure. But then again, if the records were to be believed, people thought that Sin had been defeated for good every time it had been defeated. This would be no different. Mobius would get his pilgrimage once Yevon got its bearings again, once Yuna’s Calm ended. They would finally escape.

But then again, if Yevon still needed him, why were they wearing uniforms and carrying guns they didn’t know how to use?

She didn’t like any of this. Every new detail she considered made her want to run and hide. Some guardian she would have made.

She chewed on her thumbnail nervously. “Lets run away anyway,” she said. “Now’s the perfect time. No one is going to stop us. They’re all too confused by what’s going on around us.”

Mobius was sprinting down the street again before he knew how to reply, with Amalthea staying only a short distance behind him so she could watch over him safely.

She didn’t know where either of them planned to go. The sky was on fire. There were corpses everywhere, and they were the only soldiers in sight. No one so much as looked at them. They had their own problems to deal with, without wasting time begging for the help of deserters of Yevon.

The sky wasn’t on fire, realized Amalthea. No, it was shimmering. It was alive, a swirling torrent of Pyreflies glimmering in the sinking, red sunlight that threatened to engulf all of Spira in its flame. And all of them were moving towards one location, where Sin had fallen, and the great airship hung just a little too low in the sky.

“Someone is channeling all of these?” asked Mobius, slowing his footsteps to gape up at the lights. “The way they’re moving… this is a sending. Who is doing this?”

Amalthea shook her head, looking up as well. She almost forgot that both of them were out of breath, having covered a good amount of ground before they had to stop.

Some of the Pyreflies were from the newly dead, she realized. Some of them seemed just a little too close, and only getting closer.

An errant piece of the flow broke off, like a wave crashing against a rock, splashing seafoam against the land. Unfortunately, Mobius was the rock, or at the very least within splashing range.

He was on his knees the instant the Pyreflies retreated inside of him. She had almost missed it, and would have, if she had blinked. The Pyreflies were there one second, and then they were gone, and his ankles had given out beneath him, sending him to the ground. She hadn’t reached him in time before he hit the hard dirt, but she couldn’t tell if he was injured or not as she cried out to him.

He tried to sit up, but the motion made him feel nauseous and he rolled over instead, vomiting on the ground.

“Mobius!” she called again, kneeling beside him. She dragged her hands through her hair at her temples, falling to her knees at his side. “Forget running away… you need to see a medic, immediately.”

Mobius hummed weakly, trying to agree with her as he dragged the back of his arm across his cheek in disgust.

She reached out to him, unfastening his armor as quickly as she could. “I can’t carry you with all of this. Thank me for this later.”

He didn’t seem able to fight back, if he wanted to. She could tell he was fading, her heart racing harder than it had while they were running.

She heaved him up to her chest, carrying him bridal style back in the direction of the temple. He was taller than her, but not heavier, which she was grateful for, but her movement was too slow for her liking. She bit her lip, whimpering softly. She didn’t understand what was happening, but she didn’t want to lose him here. She wouldn’t.

“Can you hear me?” she asked softly, trying to keep him awake. “I need you to talk to me. I need to make sure you’re still with me. What day is it? Name all the maesters of Yevon, anything.”

Mobius mumbled something incoherent in response to the date, and merely groaned at the state of Yevon, quite lucidly. So he could hear and understand, and probably had no idea what the date was, but something was still wrong. She could feel it.

“When we sang yesterday,” he said slowly, his voice breaking up. “When we all sang the Hymn, before Sin came? I heard your voice the loudest. I couldn’t hear anything else.”

“What?” she asked, her eyes flicking down at him as she navigated the streets. “Keep going, I just need you to stay awake.”

“Your voice is so beautiful,” he said, pleasantly, his eyes falling shut. “I want to hear you sing again sometime.”

She wasn’t really in the mood to sing, so she didn’t oblige him, but she promised herself she would one day. Something better than the Hymn, which had only caused her trouble. Anything more interesting than what she’d grown up with.

---

Mobius slept soundly for some time after his injury. He was recovering nicely, but most of his time was spent unconscious since the errant Pyreflies that split off from the great sending above the city attacked him. Amalthea had seen him move from the cot in his room a scant few times since bringing him back to his room. The temple had been undamaged by Sin falling on top of the city, and most of the damage had been done to the surrounding homes.

“I’ve come to inform you that Lady Yuna has felled Sin,” said Father Malach, entering the room.

“Yes, we know,” said Amalthea, reluctantly. “I heard about her speech in Luca… Why are you telling us this?”

“She is the first High Summoner to ever survive defeating Sin,” replied the Father, flicking his wrist so his open palm faced the ceiling. “We believe this time will be different. And… some time has passed since then. At this point, we don’t think Sin will return.”

Amalthea felt a feeling of dread like a stone in the pit of her stomach. “Has anyone ever believed Sin will return after the start of a Calm? It’s been defeated four times before. I remember the last Calm; we thought it would end then too.”

“You were a child. We were taught of the cycle of death in Spira: the summoner leaves on their pilgrimage, the summoner defeats Sin, losing their life in the process, and then Sin returns not a month later,” he said, growing impatient. “Lady Yuna has defied the odds against her and she is still with us. She did the one thing no High Summoner before her has ever managed. Those of us still remaining to oversee the prospective summoners and guardians in training no longer see any necessity in such a program.”

She scowled, looking down at Mobius as he slept. His breathing was slightly shallow, but he remained asleep even through their conversation. “So what are you saying?”

“Since we no longer have a need to continue training summoners, we would like to place you both in the Warrior Monks, permanently,” he answered.

“What?” she asked, laughing from disbelief.

“We need as many hands as can be spared for the rebuilding effort,” said Malach. “We have nowhere else to put you, now that you’ve been passed over to make the pilgrimage.”

“We were passed over because you kept putting it off,” hissed Amalthea, her jaw clenched far too tightly. “He spent two weeks waiting to be given leave after he was granted the power to summon the temple’s Aeon, and it was only then that Yuna defeated Sin.”

“Would it have made a difference? At that time, we were busy dealing with the fallout of losing only one of our Maesters. If you had left, you would not have made it to Sin in time before she did the deed herself,” he answered.

“But it isn’t fair!” she complained. “I’ve spent my whole life trying to get away from Yevon, that’s what his pilgrimage was supposed to be. I can’t join the warrior monks.”

“Where else will you go?” asked Father Malach, tilting his head with a look of indifference and superiority. He turned his back to her, nearly at the door’s threshold. “Even if you completed your pilgrimage, both of you would have perished. No one ever planned for you to have a future outside of Yevon. This is all you have.”

Amalthea gritted her teeth in disgust as he left without another word. She could feel her face steaming as hot tears pricked at her eyes.

“We won’t have to answer to him when we’re moved to the monks permanently,” mumbled Mobius, almost reassuringly.

“Have you been awake?” she asked, quietly.

“Not for long. It was his foul mood that woke me,” he joked slightly, giving a weak smile.

“This is awful,” she said, shaking her head. She didn’t much feel like being playful right now. The fact that he was feeling well enough to joke was a shock, all things considered. This affected his life far more than hers.

“It is,” he agreed, trailing off as if he meant to say more, but he didn’t. The playful tone was gone from his voice.

He didn’t sit up, staring at the window, but not out it. He sighed heavily.

Their rooms would probably be converted into extra living space for the younger orphans, once they and the other apprentices were shuffled into the monks’ barracks. She couldn’t imagine what he must have thought of this. They had both spent their whole lives training to defeat Sin once and for all, but he was the one living in the highly praised spotlight that came with being a young summoner. She knew she would have a hard time adjusting to being just a face in the crowd, but for him…?

Who could say?

“What will we do?” she asked.

“I don’t know yet,” he admitted, shaking his head. “But there are others like us, who have been abandoned by Yevon. I bet they aren’t very happy about their chance being taken away from them either.”