Dream of the Water Fayth

By Fai Gensou

Disclaimer: I'm a poor college student. If I owned this I wouldn't be poor.

Note: May reference M'jai's Spira series. Because it is just that spiffy and wonderful and canon-like. And I'll be sticking more to the Japanese version, because I like some of the dialogue in that better than the English one.

Chapter 1

This whole time, as she fell more and more in love with him during the pilgrimage, she thought that she would be the one leaving. It was after Yunalesca's defeat, when they devised the plan to defeat Sin without the Final Aeon, she began to hope. Hope for a life together with him. She still clung to that hope even as he revealed he would disappear after defeating Yu Yevon, hoping that he was wrong somehow. That hope grew as every moment that he stayed beyond Yu Yevon's defeat passed, as she sent her aeons.

That hope died as she saw his hands waver and ripple like water, fading out enough to show his chest through them.

"I have to go." He said, apologetic. "I'm sorry I couldn't show you Zanarkand." He turned back to their friends, avoiding her eyes. "See ya." Walking to the end of the airship, away from her.

She couldn't let him go like that. She ran to him, hoping that maybe, maybe if she held him tight enough, he would stay.

But she passed right through him, something neither of them expected, her momentum tripping her after she passed through, landing on the airship's deck.

Eyes watched unseeing as a pyrefly rise out of the ship, floating up. Tears didn't come. They might later, but now all she felt was emptiness. Spira was finally free, so why did it still feel like losing?

She rose to her feet, and she said "Thank you." What else could she say that wouldn't make it harder on both of them then it already was?

She heard him come up behind her, and closed her eyes as he put his arms around her shoulders in a mimic of a hold. She could still feel his warmth as he did, and she shivered slightly as he passed through her, walking to the end of the airship before taking a running leap off of it.

Selfishly, she was glad she didn't have to watch him fade away before her eyes, like an illusion…or a dream.

The speech to the people at the stadium in Luca came right on the heels of Sin's defeat, and while potions and magic could heal physical injuries, they couldn't deal with the exhaustion, or the sense of loss. Auron's absence was easier to accept. He had accomplished what he had set out to do, and he had no more reason to stay among the living.

Tidus's absence, on the other hand, was much harder to accept. He clearly had not been an Unsent like Auron was revealed to be, which begged the question of what he was. Yuna remembered Bahamut's fayth saying that when they woke up, their dream would end. Did that make Tidus a dream, or some form of Aeon that the Fayth sent to Spira? And what of Jecht? If he was the same as Tidus, how could he have become the Final Aeon and then Sin?

Yuna was struck with the terrible sense that she had killed Tidus in a way when she sent the Fayth after Yu Yevon's defeat. But he hadn't stopped her, hadn't stopped them from defeating Sin for good, not like how he had searched for a way to keep her from dying, to find a way to defeat Sin without the Final Aeon. As much as it hurt, it was clear he had accepted this, and his resolve reminded Yuna of hers, when she reached Zanarkand, ready to place Spira before her own life.

No one on the airship was terribly surprised when, upon returning after giving her speech, Yuna retreated to Tidus's cabin, with a request to be left alone.

Yuna leaned against the door of Tidus's cabin after locking it, surveying the room. It was as messy as the previous times she had seen it. It really felt like he should come walking back any moment now, to swing her in his arms before they celebrated Sin's defeat in a more private way.

But he wouldn't. And never would.

Yuna stepped farther into the room, picking up the nightshirt that lay where he had thrown it, bringing it to her face. It still smelled like him. How long before his scent faded away like the rest of him?

Gathering up the shorts he had slept in as well, she laid them on the bed before turning to her obijime and obidome as she began undressing, folding each article of clothing neatly before slipping on Tidus's nightclothes. They were large on her, but she felt closer to him. Sitting down on the bed, she slide her arm under the pillow, as she tended to down when she laid down to sleep, and felt her fingers touch something.

Grabbing it and pulling it out, Yuna looked it over. It was a sphere. Wondering why Tidus would leave a sphere under his pillow, she pressed play.

Tidus's face appeared in view. "Yuna…well I hope its Yuna. If you're not Yuna, turn this off and give it to her! She has first dibs on this!" Yuna giggled a little.

"Yuna…given that you're watching this, then Sin is gone for good…and so am I. After the war with Bevelle, Yu Yevon gathered the survivors from his side, and turned them into the massive Fayth we saw on Mt. Gagazet, using them to summon a dream. A dream of Zanarkand in its prime, untouched by the war, preserved forever through the minds and power of the Fayth, all the Fayth. And he formed an armor to protect himself while summoning, so the dream would never die. The armor was Sin, existing forever as Yu Yevon possessed every Aeon that broke through that armor."

He looked away for a moment, before turning back.

"It would be easy to say that I came from this dream and leave it at that, but…you deserve the truth. I am not just a dream crafted by the Fayth. I…I am a Fayth."

Yuna stared at his unmoving face after that declaration before she realized she had hit the pause button of the sphere without realizing it. Tidus, a Fayth? Was it possible? Possible that there was a Fayth hidden away where no one could ever find it that had passed from memory? Biting her lip, she hit the play button.

"I was born over a thousand years ago, and was seventeen when Zanarkand was destroyed. I had been injured, but was not in any immediate danger of dying, when Yunalesca came upon me. I tried asking for help, for healing, since as the daughter of the powerful summoner in Spira, she would have skilled in white magic, but I only managed the please. And she took that please as permission and turned me into a Fayth. My Aeon took the form of Leviathan, an ancient water deity and guardian of the original Al Bhed home island, Wutai. Needless to say, as the divisions between Yevon and the Al Bhed grew, it was decided that there could not be an Aeon in the form of a heretic god. So Yevon destroyed the temple my statue resided in, populating it with fiends and eventually banishing Omega there after ensuring my statue was buried, banning it from record that me and my Aeon ever existed.

"It was then that I first entered the dream Yu Yevon had created, passing the centuries. Until I decided to…relive my life, actually relive it, not just… play back the memories like a sphere recording. I recreated my body as it would have been as in my earliest memory, and entered into it. Without realizing it, I went from being a dreamer to part of the dream. Meaning that when Auron pulled me into Spira, my body here was supported not by my statue, but by all the Fayth in Spira. Since all the Fayth in Spira are interconnected, when one Fayth is sent, all of them are sent, something that would take a summoner on Yu Yevon's level to do. (Her, on the same level as Yu Yevon?) Though without Yu Yevon binding them together, it might be easier to do.

"I could never tell anything of this to you before. Yunalesca-or maybe Yevon, I'm not entirely sure-bound all the Fayth in a spell of silence, to keep all of us from speaking of the truth behind Sin, or revealing ourselves as Fayth if we choose to manifest in solid bodies and mingle among the population, as Fayth could do before Yevon placed the sutras inside each Chamber of the Fayth to bind their power. I'm guessing this spell broke with her death, but how could I explain any of this to you? Hell, the only way I can do this sphere is by pretending that I'm talking out a story.

"I can't stay in Spira once the Fayth are sent, since the connection to my statue has been stretched to near breaking, and this body is powered by all the Fayth. But even if I could stay…I've been stuck in this limbo between life and death for a thousand years now. I can't you give children, I won't grow old with you, and when you died, I wouldn't be able to join you on the Farplane, not as long as my soul is anchored in the living world. I figure it would be easier to wait for you to join me on the Farplane, then to have a life with you only to lose you. Not that I want to join me too soon! I don't want to see you until you've had grandkids!

"They say that true love is wanting the person you love to be happy, even without you. I hope that I'm man enough to be able to do that once I'm gone, but… Be happy, Yuna, even though I won't be there.

"In the nightstand there's book. It's my journal. I wrote out everything, my life back before the war, when I was a Fayth, everything. The whole truth. I want you to read it. Yevon has buried the past from people for too long, and it's only by learning of the past that people learn from it.

"I love you, Yuna…and I'll be waiting for you."

Yuna had found her tears during the last part of the sphere. She held it to her chest, one of the last connections she had to Tidus, and cried. Wiping her tears away, she set the sphere down on the nightstand and was about to open the drawer when there was a knock on the door. "Yuna-chan? I brought you food."

Standing you, Yuna, walked over to the door, opening it to reveal Rikku, holding a plate of sandwiches and a glass of juice. Rikku raised an eyebrow at Yuna's clothes, but thankfully didn't comment as Yuna took the plate and glass from her. "You alright?"

Yuna paused. "I…I'm not sure. He…he left me a sphere, and his journal to read, so that I can learn everything."

Rikku nodded in understanding. "I guess I'll leave you to that then. You will tell us about it once you're done, right?"

"I will."

"'Kay, Rin's grabbed a bunch of people to help him with a tapestry that he saved from Home. It's supposed to be from the island the Al Bhed used to live on, so everyone's practically tiptoeing around it."

This got Yuna's attention. "Do you know what's on it?"

"Well I haven't seen it myself, but I think Pops said it has the Al Bhed god on it, Leviathan."

Yuna thanked Rikku for the food and closed the door. Leviathan was real then. As much as she trusted and believed Tidus, others would require proof of some sort. Placing the plate and glass on the nightstand with the sphere, she opened the drawer.

A thick notebook was the only thing inside, with Tidus's name scrawled on the cover. As messy as his handwriting was, it almost seemed to be a form of art, and she knew he could write neatly when called for.

Sitting back on the bed, Yuna propped the pillow on the headboard and pulled the blankets over her lower legs. Flipping it open, she began to read.

"This is my last chance...to tell my story..."

End of Chapter 1

Don't expect quick updates, because I'm a junior in college, and grad school stuff is coming up. Hope you all enjoy, and let me know what you think.