Disclaimer: Square owns them all. This story was written for fun, not profit.

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One of Yuna's private joys is watching her husband try to scold their children, because he is so endearingly bad at it. He waves his arms at them and splutters, his expressive face full of amused indignation -- and somehow "come to dinner" always ends with Chappu on his back and Elena in his arms, all three of them covered in saltwater and wet sand.

She is the High Summoner. Although she admits it reluctantly, she is also the closest Spira truly comes to a leader. She is the one who disappears from her family's lives for days and weeks on end, stitching a patchwork government out of factions and grudges with a few pointed words. These days she wears long skirts and short sleeves and keeps her hair in a coiled braid at the nape of her neck, and she has touched neither her staff nor her pistols in a long time.

Rikku tells her that she's the boss of her little household. Paine and Lulu, in their respective ways, tell her that she's simply the adult.

But Yuna does not think like this. When she watches Tidus she does not wonder how he can have smile lines and white hairs at his temple and a scar on his arm from an unfortunate incident with a piranha -- if he ages simply because he believes he ought to. She does not dwell on the fact that their son and daughter are Sin-orphans, or that she will never have a child with his sun-bleached hair. Yuna treasures what is here and now and today, carrying her joy with the same fierce protectiveness that once drove her through Zanarkand and into the depths of Bevelle.

She sees her family splashing in the water, dinner and scolding long-forgotten, and smiles wide enough to light up the world.

And with quick, sure steps, she runs across the sand to join them.