1 Summoner's Birth

I opened my bi-colored eyes, squinting against the rising sun. The morning light was peeking through the flap covering the entrance to Lulu's hut, which I'd stayed in since I was seven years old…I blocked the thoughts of my past out of my mind as I sat up.

This day was the day that would decide my fate; whether I had the strength to become a summoner, or not. I had spent years training for this day, six, to be exact. I knew that if I became a fully fledged summoner today, I would not be here in Besaid, or even here in Spira for much longer.

I stood and stretched, looking around the hut. Lulu was gone from her cot across the room, so I grabbed a piece of fruit and a small loaf of bread from the large basket by the door. I didn't bother to straighten my dress, which I had forgotten to change out of last night, and I'm sure I looked like a walking disaster, but no one cared.
I walked slowly through the small village, taking nibbles from the food as I went. People, all my friends, greeted me in the streets. A little boy ran by me, and shouted, "Heeeeeey! Come play Blitzball with me an' Wakka!" I smiled at him. "Sorry, Akrui, but I have business at the temple this morning." "Okay!" He grinned cheerfully as he dashed out of the village, in the direction of the beach.
"Whoa! Not so fast!" Luzzu grabbed Akrui's arm. "It's not safe on the road today. You should wait for Wakka and his Blitzers to come with you. It's dangerous to travel on the road alone, especially for a little man like you." The boy was indignant at this. "I'm not little! I'm nine years old! If you want to see someone who's little, look at my new baby sister! She's only a…" He looked up, counting on his fingers, and with his whole face scrunched in concentration. "fourfth of me!"
He was wrong, but that just made the exchange even cuter. Then, he ran off into the village, no doubt searching for Wakka. I smiled, thinking of the little girl who'd been born only a few days ago. This is what I would fight for. The innocence of children, and the unity of families. I wanted all children to have their own father, and their own mother. I didn't ever want anyone to have to be raised by the temple nuns again. I didn't want anyone to go through the pain I went through, without a mother or father.
The nuns were loving, but they could never replace real parents. I looked back towards the temple and saw Kimahri standing beside Lulu and Wakka, who was waving at me, beckoning me to come to them. I finished the last bite of bread as I took off running towards them. "Yo! Yuna! You gotta get ready! Almost time ya?" I heard more than just a hint of sadness underneath his attempt at cheerful demeanor. His words were happy, but his voice gave him away.
"Yes." Lulu looked at me. My soft white and sky blue gown was disheveled, and my hair was no doubt the same. "You should change into your new Summoner's clothes. We will be waiting inside the temple. Kimahri and I will guard; Wakka can spend this time training the team before the Blitzball tournament." Wakka scratched the back of his neck, what he always does when he feels guilty, uncomfortable, or embarrassed.
"It's okay, Wakka. I don't mind. Really!" "Ya? Thanks. May Yevon be with you." He did the prayer gesture, and then ran off through the village gate. I jogged back to Lulu's tent and pulled the treasured Summoner's outfit from the basket at the foot of my cot. I lifted it up, admiring the richly colored, flowing garment. The temple nuns made it for me. It was beautiful. I put it on, straightened my necklace and my hair, and looked myself over in the tiny handheld mirror that my father gave me before he left on his Pilgrimage ten years ago.
The mirror was my mother's before it was mine. Besides this, I had nothing left of her. I had decided to give the mirror to a certain, very precious girl who'd been like a little sister to me. Her name was Amai. I would do that after I officially became a Summoner, though. I thoughtfully fingered the blue, beaded braid that fell from my hair onto my right shoulder, and then folded the blue and white dress, gently placed it into the basket, and left the hut.
I reached out my hands and concentrated, and my staff materialized in my hands. Then, I walked toward the temple, feeling strange, and somehow, almost out of place in my Summoner's clothes. When I reached the temple, I took a deep breath and entered. I knew what I was about to do. I was about to doom myself to death, for Spira's hope and peace.
I wondered if I was ready for this. Doubt was trying to force itself into my mind, but I pushed it back. 'Yes! I am Yuna, daughter of High Summoner Braska! I will become a Summoner. I will defeat Sin. I must defeat Sin.' I mentally gave myself a pep talk, but it only half worked. When I walked into the temple, I was quickly greeted by Lulu and Kimahri. My mentor, Chie also met me at the entrance.
"Yuna, my dear, are you ready?" His question actually sounded more like a statement. "I am." I was very solemn, but I refused to let my feelings take over my mind. I would do this, no matter how I felt about it. "Let's go." Lulu said, her voice void of any emotion. Kimahri nodded but said nothing, and made no sound.
Chie placed his old, wrinkled hand on my shoulder. "Yuna. You are brave. I will pray for your safe return." I bowed my head. "Thank you. I will return." At the entrance to the trials, I knelt in prayer, asking that Yevon would guide my feet. Lulu and Kimahri followed closely behind as I stepped cautiously across the threshold, not really sure what to expect.
I had never been in a cloister before. It was forbidden for summoners and guardians to speak of what was found inside the mysterious chambers, all that was widely known is that the cloisters were often very dangerous. There was a door in front of me, with a sphere shaped recess in it. I let go of my staff, allowing it to disperse into a puff of smoke. I closed my eyes and concentrated, clasping my hands together until a ball of energy formed in my hand. I extended the ball to Lulu. Until I got stronger, I would have to use her powers to manipulate the elements. Someday I would be able to do the same. "Water, I think." I said softly.
She touched it, whispering something that sounded like the name of Yevon, mixed with the word water. The sphere changed into a ball of clear liquid, it looked somewhat like the Sphere pool which Wakka and the others play Blitzball in. I placed the sphere into the door's recess, and the door immediately slid open. I didn't like having to rely on Lulu for getting through the trials, but it would take another several months of training to hone my skills with creating elements. I'd just have to learn along my pilgrimage. I knew that the sooner I leave, the better, that way fewer people would die. What I didn't realize then is how I would always rely on my guardians, who were also my friends, no matter how strongly I felt that I needed to independent on this journey.
We continued to travel through the cloister, fighting against a few fiends of the people who had tried to pass through here before. We nearly reached the end, when the floor slid abruptly from beneath my feet, another trap, similar to many others that filled this cloister. I screamed, and Kimahri grabbed my arm, just before I fell into the pit of boiling water below.
The steam soaked my clothes in a matter of seconds, stinging my skin. Kimahri pulled me up, and I stood, leaning against the wall for a few seconds to catch my breath. "That was close." I said, putting my hand on my chest. "Too close." Lulu said, her voice flat, although I could tell that beneath her mask of calm, she was shaken. "Thank you, Kimahri." I said, nodding my head, and cautiously walking around the huge pit.
Once we reached the other side, we entered the anteroom, where I could hear a woman fayth singing her mournful hymn. I turned to Lulu and Kimahri. "Thank you." I bowed to them, and as they bowed back, I took a deep breath and approached the door to the chamber of the fayth. I closed my eyes and asked that Yevon would grant me passage. The door slowly slid open.
I stepped into the dark, dusty room, looking around in wonder. The door closed behind me, and my eyes fell to a statue of a young girl. I accurately guessed that she was the fayth. I vaguely wondered why her voice was that of a grown woman, but I decided that it was not important. I knelt, facing the statue. I was suddenly very nervous, wondering if I would be able to make it, to become a real summoner.
I prayed to Yevon, begging him to grant me the power to save Spira from its pain. I prayed and prayed, but there was no answer. With each passing second, my fear rose in me more, and though I tried to squelch it, it would not go away. There was not a sound besides the hymn, sung without cease by the woman's beautiful, haunting voice.
The air was hot and slightly damp, and I felt like the walls were closing in on me."Please!" I whispered. "I won't leave until you give me this!" Still, nothing happened. I prayed for many hours, until I grew weak from hunger and exhaustion. Still, I refused to give up. I continued beseeching Yevon, and when I was on the verge of passing out, the spirit of the young girl rose up from her statue in the form of a woman.
"You are brave, Yuna. You are now a Summoner. Please. Grant Spira the peace we long to bring." With that, she flew towards my chest, and I felt like my soul was being invaded. It hurt, and I felt dizzy. The room spun wildly around me, and I lost all consciousness. While I lay, unaware of anything, the sun set on the isle of Besaid, and a new day began as it rose once again.

As I blinked my eyes open, I was at first confused at my surroundings. It was hot and dark; I was soaked in sweat, and I felt faint. Then, I remembered where I was.
Joy, fear and grief mixed together in one strange emotion as I came the realization that I was truly now a real summoner. I slowly got to my feet, but my head swam. I wondered how long I had been asleep. I stumbled and fell to my knees, before crawling to the door. Using the wall for support, I stood up again.
While I was leaning against the wall, the door opened for me as a bright light flashed from somewhere deep inside the chamber. My eyelids drooped shut, and I could barely stand. I took a few steps forward, before falling headlong down the stairs.
I heard people gasp, before I was caught in someone's arms, right before I hit the stone steps. I looked at him. He was about my age, and he had a faint resemblance to Wakka's brother, Chappu, except he had blond hair, instead of their trademark bright red hair.
He helped me to stand straight, and then backed away from the stairs, leaving me standing there, looking at my guardians. I put my hands behind my neck, and flung the sweaty, sticky hair away from it, before surveying the scene.
It seemed that Wakka and whoever the blond guy was had come in at some point, and Lulu and Kimahri were still here. They were all staring at me, questioningly. I smiled. "I've done it. I've become a Summoner!"
It was a somber moment. It was as if I had just said 'I'm going to die to save the world!' It was happy and sad at the same time. Kimahri said nothing, as usual, Lulu just nodded. Wakka made a thumbs-up sign at me attempting a smile, but only managed to tilt the corners of his mouth upwards slightly.
The blond guy just looked confused. I felt much less dizzy, so I cautiously walked down the steps, but still stumbled a bit. The further I got from the chamber of the fayth, the more of my strength returned, though my mind was still fuzzy, I could hardly think.
I found that I was still too weak to walk far, so Kimahri carried me to the entrance, and then set me down before we left the cloister. The whole village was gathered in the temple, and when they saw me, there were murmurs and some clapping, but no one seemed especially glad.
Nevertheless, I smiled at them, although that was not my true feeling, I wanted to show them that I was strong, that I would be able to save them. I had to be able to save them.
I did a formal prayer gesture, and then they left the temple, clearing the way for me to leave. "Come, Yuna, we'll get you cleaned up." Lulu began to lead me towards our hut. When we left the temple, it looked to be around ten in the morning, by the sun's position.
Kimahri went into the jungle, probably to get himself some food, while Wakka took the blond guy to the Crusader's lodge. I figured he must be a visiting crusader, but I still wondered what his reason was for breaking the sacred forbiddance that anyone other than a summoner and guardians may enter the cloister of trials.
My mind was too tired to even think about the possibilities, so I pushed the thoughts aside for the time being. Lulu prepared a meal of gull meat and bread along with some fresh fruit while I bathed in a tub behind a partition at the back of the hut.
I washed my Summoner's clothes while I was bathing, and when I was done, I slipped into a simple white gown, and hung the clothes outside in the sunshine to dry.
We ate in silence, and I could tell that Lulu was, as usual, hiding any hints of tenderness behind a brick wall of silence. I smiled a bit as I ate, but I would have rather frowned.
When we finished, my clothing had dried in the hot, island sun, and I put it back on, and then went to the center of the village. When I stood there, waiting in the Summoner's circle, the place where new summoners would summon their first aeon, the people of the village saw me and gathered around.
When Wakka saw me, he ran into the Crusader's hut, and came back out, dragging the same blond haired boy with him. I smiled at the boy, and he smiled back. There was something oddly familiar about that lopsided grin.
By the time Wakka arrived, most of the village had come, and some others were standing at the entrances to their huts. And so I began. I closed my eyes, and prayed to Yevon, concentrating on one name, Valefor.
I twirled around several times, gathering the materializing pyreflies with my staff. When I stopped, I was standing in the center of the circle. As I lifted my staff towards the sky, a glyph appeared around me, and there was a blinding flash of light in the heavens.
I heard a roar as a large, dragon-like bird flew from the sky. She landed beside me, and I stroked her neck. The people clapped and made some "Ooh, ahh" noises, but they really didn't seem very happy…and I could understand why.
I dismissed Valefor, and the crowd slowly dispersed, some people whispering their care for me, and giving me some last words of wisdom. I tried hard to listen, but my mind was spinning in a hundred different directions at once.
These were the people I had grown up with, and each of them had left an imprint on my heart, each one had spent time teaching me, raising me. I no longer had father, or a mother, so, like the village had done with so many other orphaned children, they raised me.
I loved each one of them, and I knew that I would never see them again, come tomorrow. I walked back to Lulu's hut in silence; exhaustion was taking over my senses.
My forced smile was drooping, and my thoughts were moving towards more depressing things. I would never see my friends again, not even on the farplane. When I summoned the final aeon, it would meld my soul with its, and then my soul would cease to exist, so I would fade into nothing at the end of my pilgrimage, so said the teachings of Yevon.
I lay down on my cot, and darkness came over me as I got some much-needed sleep. I dreamed of the day of my father left.

I wept as my father said goodbye, and Jecht hugged me. Then he leaned back to look at me, grinning lopsidedly. He said, "Now, Yuna, there's no reason to cry! When Sin's gone, everything'll be alright!"
It came to me in that moment, I realized where I had seen the blond's smile before. It was the same as Jecht's.

I woke, almost instantly forgetting my dream. I tried to remember, but the images faded from my mind until I had almost forgotten that I had dreamed at all.
I sat up and looked around. Lulu was sitting at the table talking to Wakka. "Yo! Sleepyhead! You gotta get up! We're hav'n a bonfire to, um, celebrate your success!"
I rubbed the sleep from my eyes and swung my legs off the edge of the cot. "Wakka, who's that blond guy who was in the cloister? Is he another summoner's guardian?"
Wakka scratched the back of his neck. "Uh…we don't really know who he is. He's not a guardian…he just kinda barged in. He thinks he's a Blitzball player from Zanarkand. Said somth'n about Sin attacking it. Probably got too close to Sin, and got his memory messed with."
I still didn't remember my dream, but something in the back of my mind was whispering that there was more to the boy than at first meets the eye. I wondered still if there might be a connection with the blond and Jecht, seeing as they had similar stories.
"Hm." I said, pretending to be uninterested. I fixed my hair and clothes and went outside. Some of the men where stoking the huge bonfire, adding large logs harvested from the jungle.
The fire reached a little higher than my head, and it gave off a stifling heat even at a good distance from it. I sat somewhere nearby, and watched the stars. Amai ran up to me, and in her adorable voice, she shouted, "Lady Yuna! Can you play with me?"
"Yes, but first, I have something for you." I pulled my mother's mirror from the fold in my obi, and handed it to her. "It was my mother's, and now, it's yours." She smiled as she took it, and then giggled as she looked at her reflection.
She was missing her two front teeth, and had a sweet button nose, long black hair, and large brown eyes. "Thank you, Lady Yuna!" She laughed again as she continued to gaze at herself. "You're welcome! Hey, would you like me to braid your hair?"
"Yeah!" I put her hair in a thick braid that fell over her shoulder, all the way to her waist. As soon as I had finished, Chie and his wife, Mame came to speak with me.
Amai ran off to show her friends the gift she'd received. "Lady Yuna," Chie started, "When that heathen boy went into the cloister, did he hurt you?" "I…" I started to speak, but Mame cut me off.
"He's a no-good-one, he is! I knew it from the moment I saw him! You'd better keep a close eye on that one!" Mame had gotten a bit eccentric from being so old, and seeing so much pain in her lifetime. I regularly had to remind myself to be patient with her.
"I know that he broke the precepts, Mame, but he seems to have forgotten them. I'm sure he didn't mean any harm." Mame wasn't even listening to me. "You heathen! Stay away from the summoner!" She shouted to someone behind me.
I turned and saw the young man who'd kept me from falling down the stairs earlier. I stood up, and turned to speak to him. "Lady Yuna!" Mame shouted. I turned back to her, saying, "It was really my fault to begin with."
I knew if I had waited longer to try to become a Summoner, I would have avoided making them all get so worried. "Be careful Lady Yuna." Chie said. "Come on." I said to the guy, as Mame cackled after me to stay away from him.
We walked to an unoccupied area by the bonfire. I turned to him, suddenly wondering what to say. "I'm Yuna…What's your name?" "Tidus! Nice to meet you!" There was an awkward silence, as we both gazed into the fire, and then I decided that a thanks was needed for him saving me earlier.
"Thank you so much for helping me earlier!" He scratched the back of his head, looking uncomfortable. "Ah, I'm sorry about that. Wasn't that…wasn't I not supposed to…I guess I kinda overreacted. I just got worried, and when no one else was gonna help, I felt like I should."
"Oh, that's alright. I was…overconfident. I really wasn't ready to try yet. It was really my fault. You didn't know, after all." There was another awkward silence, and then he spoke up.
"Um, I saw that aeon thing! That's amazing!" "Really? Do you think I could become high summoner?" He looked a little confused, and I realized that he probably didn't know exactly what I was talking about, considering how much he'd forgotten.
"Defeat Sin, I mean." "Oh! Yeah! You're great!" I smiled. Then I felt someone tug on my arm. I looked down to see Amai was standing there. "Lady Yuna, come play with me some more!" I nodded at her, before looking back at Tidus.
It looked like we would be seeing a lot of each other for a while, if he's going to Luca. "So, tomorrow, then." I said. He was befuddled. "Tomorrow?" "We're going on the same boat, aren't we?" I questioned.
"Oh, really? Cool!" A genuine smile formed on his face. "We can talk more, then!" 'I'd like to hear more about Zanarkand.' "Hm!" He nodded. I left him and went with Amai. I tried to make the most of every moment, knowing that my time here was coming to an end…

TidusxYuna Always