Path of a Summoner

After encountering Mobius in Remiem, it was a race to Zanarkand. 

Without the Hyacinth, Mobius would have to scale the mountain range that protected the final temple on foot. Maybe the mountain would kill him first, before he reached Zanarkand and anyone had to decide what to do about him.

“I don’t really wish that,” said Wren, holding her legs to her chest while she thought. 

The trip in the airship was nowhere near as long or difficult as braving Mt. Gagazet. It was warm, with plenty of food and water. There was also no fear of finding the remains of summoners and guardians who didn’t make it and had been left behind, which took a little weight off of Wren’s shoulders. But still, it took time.

When they finally arrived in Zanarkand’s skies, most of her time was spent looking down at the ground below them. She watched the waves and the rocks as they passed. And the city: a silent, broken city, decimated by forces that would deny their involvement and blame it on an unrelated third party until the original culprits died out and were forgotten. She had seen pieces of this place in her dreams, but in her dreams, it was still alive. The air was full of pyreflies, thankfully nothing at all like the kind she was looking for. It was sobering, but pretty.

It was dawn when they arrived. Chia had Tana to talk to in the cockpit, and Tana was a fast learner. She’d been able to relieve Chia more than once to keep them in the air without having to find a place to stop for the night in the mountains, so it was Tana who was there when Wren went to find a little company, the rest of the group asleep in the cabins.

She hovered behind Tana in the captain’s seat, watching the horizon as Zanarkand’s temple got closer and closer.

“What are you doing awake?” asked Tana, looking up at Wren when she felt her hand on the back of the chair. 

“I’ve been restless,” Wren said, laughing quietly. “I slept a bit, but I guess I woke up too early. And I don’t think I’ll feel like sleeping once we land.”

“I know what you mean,” said Tana. “It’s a good thing it’s my turn to fly, or I’d be pacing in the back, driving everyone else crazy. Don’t worry about me though, I made sure to get plenty of sleep before it was time for Chia to turn in.”

Wren watched as the temple loomed ever closer, like a sluggish turtle with its ancient dome that protected the silent citadel. It felt as if the ship were standing perfectly still, while the landscape itself crawled forward to meet them. She didn’t like it one bit, but at last they were nearly at their destination.

“Hey,” said Tana, looking up again. “This isn’t the end, you know? None of us want to see you beat yourself up over this whole thing.”

Wren believed her, but she couldn’t snap herself out of feeling an impending sense of doom hanging over all of them, over all of Spira. It had been longer than she cared to admit since she’d last touched her recording equipment for her movie, or even the notes she’d taken when she had not been allowed to film.

“That means a lot,” she said. “I’m still terrified, but I need to keep telling myself that you’re all in the same sinking ship with me.”

“Don’t say ‘sinking ship,’” said Tana, turning back to the ship’s console. 

Wren smiled at that just a little. “I think it probably doesn’t help that I’ve been sleeping a lot lately, but not very restfully. You guys are doing a lot to help me stay grounded.”

Tana sighed, a sound of contentment that warmed Wren’s heart. “We care about you. Hell, you saved my life once already. This is nothing.”

“Friendship isn’t nothing!” she protested, more flustered than upset. “If I had to do this alone, I never could have made it this far.”

“Maybe, but I wouldn’t even be here without you and Merris,” she said, relenting just a little. “At the very least, we never would have made it out of the Farplane.”

“Oh yeah,” murmured Wren, hesitating for just a second. “You can thank Amalthea for that, actually.”

It had been a while since she had thought about Amalthea’s help in the Farplane. A lot had happened since then, and between Amalthea and Mobius, she had been much more focused on the fact that Mobius had tried to have Tana killed. That was much more of a concern to her, though she wasn’t ungrateful to Amalthea.

Tana gave a thoughtful noise in response, looking out at the rolling horizon under the rose gold morning sun. 

It was almost time. 

The temple was so close, Tana changed the controls so that the Hyacinth was circling the skies above Zanarkand before she turned to look at Wren.

“I need Chia to land this thing,” said Tana, finally. “But we shouldn’t wake the others if we can help it.”

“I’ll get her,” said Wren, turning her back to return to the cabins.

The interior of the ship reminded her a bit of a wooden hut, with its horizontal rows of planks surrounding everything. The floors, the walls, the ceilings… all wooden. The walls were finished differently from the wood above and below her, being rougher, but not enough to splinter, compared to the floors, which were packed together tightly with some kind of resin. She thought Mobius might have leaned into the idea of it being like a ship on the sea a little too far, but didn’t know enough about how an airship could possibly function to make any judgements. At the very least, the floor was decorated with several rugs of varying design, in blues and purples, hues and patterns that also reminded her of flowers. The designs looked distinctly like they had come from Besaid, which spoke volumes of the quality, but other than light furnishings in the cabin area, there was little to keep it feeling like she was being shipped inside a crate. Or like she’d set foot back on one of the island ferries.

There were three cabins, connected by a common area, and each one had two beds in it. The ship was not very large, so the arrangement was a tight one, but it had only been designed with personal travel in mind. 

Maybe she really was tired, she realized as she entered the room where Chia slept, along with Tana’s empty cot. The two had switched arrangements around when they realized they were going to be switching off, putting Wren and Merris in one room (since he was a heavier sleeper), and Twill in their own room. 

She stood beside Chia and nudged her shoulder gently, calling her name.

Chia was lying on her side with her pillow half under her arm, and her whole face scrunched up when Wren tried to wake her. She squirmed, shoving Wren’s hand away, before finally pushing herself into a sitting position. 

“What is it?” she complained, but she was too sleepy for her words to have any severity.

“Tana says she’s ready to land,” answered Wren, smiling apologetically. 

Chia yawned loudly, then sat up more properly, swinging her legs over the side of the cot. “Give me a minute to wake up.”

Wren nodded, then went back out into the common area to leave her to her own devices for a few minutes. 

She heard someone else starting to stir as she exited the room. The noise came from her left, and shortly after that, Twill brushed aside the heavy cloth covering the doorway to block any light that might fall from the domed skylight above the common area, letting in just enough light from the upper deck to see.

“Good morning,” they said, wandering past Wren.

They walked slowly through the hall, pausing for a moment to look out the porthole to the outside, before making their way to where they could stand above the deck.

“I thought you had motion sickness?” asked Wren, following them none too stealthily. 

Twill shook their head, motioning with their hand for her to go ahead of them. "Sea sickness is different."

Wren obliged them, sticking her head warily out above the deck at first before fully emerging from the ship, as if afraid she might blow away in the wind.

“We probably shouldn’t be up here while we’re landing,” admitted Twill, following behind her to the side of the ship to look down at the sea below them. “But I trust Chia enough to let us land safely.”

Wren gave a hum of agreement as the two of them stood there in the morning sun, bathed in light that was half of gold, and half of a creamy shadow. She had to avert her eyes from the shimmer against the ocean waves as they drew ever nearer. The ship had begun to descend; Chia must have gotten back to Tana.

It was quite a sight. The sun that seemed to chase them across Spira was now rising high over the mountains on one side of the ship as they floated down gently to a large, open area outside of the temple. Wren braced herself as they touched down. It wasn’t an abnormally rough landing, but it was the first time she had been above deck for it, and as she stumbled, she decided it was probably also going to be her last time above deck during a landing. 

Still, the golden light that tried its best to warm the chilly air left her at peace. She found that even the mountains that should almost feel like a wall, keeping her apart from the rest of civilization, brought her a sense of calm that made her knees feel a little less weak.

She returned below deck to meet the others in the common area.

After some deliberation, and after some time spent waking Merris, who had slept through the whole thing, they decided to set up a camp. 

Most of their time would be spent inside the ship, but with Mobius somewhere behind them, they would need to stay there to meet him. That meant that someone was going to have to procure provisions for them while Wren stayed there, in Zanarkand.

Food, clean water, firewood… Wren wondered how long of a trip it really was over the Ronsos’ Mountain, but she thought her reunion with Mobius couldn’t take long enough.

A spit was built, so that they could do some crude cooking. Wren was very glad she’d brought a few cooking utensils with her, even though they’d been fortunate to only have to use them a few times on their journey. In Zanarkand, there was no one else. No inns with hot meals, or worried neighbors, or leftovers from big gatherings… But there was the five of them, and between them they had enough skill to survive.

Yuna had been right about the monkeys, too. If it wasn’t tied down, they would steal it. The only thing that was safe from their hands was the firepit and anything on it. If they could help it, everything was stored inside the ship, but Chia had threatened not to return from a provisions run, if she found any of the monkeys in the ship’s tiny cargo hold.

After two nights in Zanarkand, Wren’s dreams were more vivid than ever. Amalthea was still there, still furious, still anguished at her situation, but Wren felt like something was calling her. She had felt it before, in Djose, from underneath Mobius’ intricately carved home. There was no branching hallway of far too many Fayth stones in Zanarkand, as far as Wren was aware--Mobius had achieved something unique in his endeavor to provide the people with a way to survive the destruction he was going to bring. 

There was, however, the dome.

On the third day, Wren felt she had to get closer. Mobius would be a long time coming, and she needed to see what was waiting inside. 

Tana would stay behind to mind the camp, while Twill had insisted that they go along with her to investigate. Wren was not one to turn down company, especially with the strange feelings she had about this place. She was happy to have Merris along too, and so they set off, leaving Chia and Tana to their own devices.

The inside of the fortress built outside of the temple was longer than the actual distance suggested, for it wound along the inner wall in a great, crumbling spiral. The road was treacherous because of its age, and every so often, Wren imagined she saw something flickering in the corner of her eye.

Once or twice, she thought she could make out shapes in these afterimages: a lone woman, or a vision of three men that disappeared the instant when her eyes focused on them. A mother and child.

“These are the result of impressions left on the pyreflies,” said Twill, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.

“Yeah,” she said, though she felt unnerved.

It was the same as any sphere, replaying an image on a watery surface. There were far more pyreflies here in the air than anywhere she had been before, besides the Farplane. The air was different here. The pyreflies here were a torrent of emotions and private thoughts. A testament to memories shared between the summoners’ parties that made it this far.

Wren knew that all of the shadows belonged to those who had by now died long ago. To see them so vulnerable was humbling, and deeply intimate. What would she leave behind? She hoped she wasn’t marching to her death, so with any luck, she would outlive her own sorrows.

“I’d feel better if some of them didn’t talk,” said Merris, grimacing.

Wren agreed, but it was hard to tune them out when they were so sincere and heartfelt. Some of them were pleas to their loved ones, begging them to turn back after spending so many nights together on their perilous journeys. It was… hard to hear.

How had this place been turned into a tourist trap, for that short time Wren could recall hearing about it during the sphere hunting boom?

As the sky turned a golden color that ushered in the late afternoon, they arrived at the dome. The metal frame covered the entire structure, and there was no obvious way to open it.

Merris pointed to a collapsed part of rubble at the dome’s base. “Looks like this was done with explosives. The dome was probably here before, but… not like this.”

“We’re not going to get in without destroying part of the ruins,” murmured Twill, placing a hand on their chin while they thought.

Wren sighed heavily. “I still have to get inside.”

“We’re going to need more explosives to fix this,” said Merris, rubbing his neck.

“Chia can go,” suggested Twill. “But I doubt anyone would sell anything like that to someone so young.”

“They’ll sell it to Tana,” said Wren. “It doesn’t matter how we do it. Reverence for a monument won’t stop Mobius, so it can’t stop me either.”

Twill eyed her for a moment, then nodded.

“I worked a little with explosives when the Machine Faction was constructing Djose,” volunteered Merris. “It was really controlled and all I actually did was follow instructions while someone else directed us, but I can probably do it.”

“Chia isn’t going to like this,” chuckled Twill.

The trip back to camp wasn’t anywhere near as bad as the way there had been. A lot of the rubble wasn’t climbable, but the way down was quick and easy. They used this to their advantage, Merris steady and confident, Twill calculated, and Wren feeling very clumsy between the two of them. Watching Twill, she was convinced that the only thing stopping them from clearing the jump up the rubble altogether had been Merris’ and her presence. 

They told Tana and Chia their plan.

“You want me to transport explosives in my ship?” asked Chia, gaping. 

“It will be easier to transport the components separately,” said Tana, shaking her head. “Trust me, we have lots of this stuff on hand in Djose for clearing through solid rock. You’ll hardly even know it’s there.”

Chia held her head in one hand, shaking her head at the same time. “You guys are going to get me killed, I just know it. Make a list of any other supplies we need for me, cause this isn’t going to be that short of a trip. Just keep in mind I can only carry so much. This isn’t exactly a cargo ship.”

They worked out any supplies they were going to need, using Wren’s notepad to take it all down. Among the things Merris had listed, Wren was surprised to see that he’d asked for them to bring back a blitzball.

“We’re going to need something to do out here,” he said, matter-of-factly. “Blitzball is the best way to relieve stress.”

“Do you play?” asked Twill, blinking. 

He laughed, and Wren saw Tana smile from the corner of her eye. “Not officially, no, but I used to think I’d make a team one day. Actually, that was the reason I was in Luca when we met, in the first place. Ran out of gil a little faster than I thought though, and you already know the rest.”

She would certainly keep that in mind. 

“That probably would take some edge off for us,” she added, nodding in agreement. “We’ve got a lot of time to kill.”

The following morning, Chia and Tana made for Djose with their shopping list in hand. The others built a crude shelter and hunkered down for a long waiting period. 

Again, Wren hoped that what she was waiting for would never come.