The chapter name is a lie. The majority of the chapter still takes place in Guadosalam. :/

Tidus couldn't sleep. It had been a long, emotional, crazy busy day, and his brain just wouldn't shut off.

Kimahri and Wakka snoring wasn't helping much either.

Auron leaned against the wall, head braced up against his hand, braced on his knee. The man constantly bitched about people getting to bed early, but was he even sleeping? He couldn't be comfortable.

Tidus got up, and slipped his boots on, not even bothering to tie them properly. He was a little thirsty, and thought that maybe a little walk around the halls would clear his head enough to get back to bed. Maybe he could even find the kitchen.

As he opened the door to his room, he heard a squeak. He had almost smacked Yuna in the face with the door.

"Oh! I'm so sorry!" He whispered. "What are you doing up? Can't sleep either?"

She shook her head and held a finger to her lips. She grabbed his hand and pulled him further down the hall. "I'm investigating," she confessed when they were alone.

"Investigating? Why? What?"

"In the Farplane, I lied. Lord Jyscal did say something to me, but I didn't want everyone to know."

"Are you going to let me in on the scoop?"

"Yes, and I need your help, please."

He nodded.

"Lord Jyscal said he left something for me behind his portrait in the lobby."

"Really? For you?" He asked, perplexed. "Did you ever know him?"

"No, but I think he wanted someone trustworthy. Braska's daughter, another Summoner, would probably be a good guess."

"Okay, what do you need me to do?"

"Come with me, and keep watch. I want to see what this is before any other Guado gets a hold of it. If he had to come to me in the Farplane, it's obviously something he didn't want to disclose on his deathbed."

Tidus frowned at that. "I hadn't considered that. What could it be?"

She shrugged. "I don't know."

"Should we be getting involved with it?"

Again, she shrugged, looking sheepish. "I'd feel guilty ignoring the wishes of a dead man. If he appeared, it's obviously bothering him. Maybe this will give him closure."

"Okay, if you're sure." He scratched the back of his neck. "Don't you want to tell the others?"

She smiled at his concern. "You think Auron and Wakka will let me get involved in this?"

He scoffed. "'This is a waste of time. This is a distraction.'" He impersonated Auron.

"'Oh this is Yevon matters, we shouldn't get involved, ya?'" She pretended to be Wakka.

"That's a really good Wakka!"

"And you do a really good Auron!" She giggled.

There was a creak from down the hall, the mansion settling in the night. No one was there, but it reminded them that they were out in the hall.

"Let's go!" She urged him down the hall to the lobby.

A Guado guard stood outside of Seymour's room, but there was no one else around.

"Lady Yuna? Is everything okay?"

"She was thirsty," Tidus provided. "Can you show her the way to the kitchen?"

Obviously the guard found them non-threatening and smiled at them. "I can get you a glass of water. Just wait here." They followed him down the stairs, passed Jyscal's portrait, and watched him go into the Parlor, where they had met Seymour earlier in the day.

"Okay, keep watch," Yuna said as she hurried to the portrait. With a little grunt, she admitted, "Actually, let's trade places, it's kind of heavy."

He swiftly took her place and lifted the portrait off the wall. Since the wall was made up of roots, there was a little alcove hidden, with a sphere, a rolled up piece of paper, and a signet ring. Not knowing what object he was supposed to grab, he swiped them all and stuffed them into his jacket.

"I hear him coming!" Yuna whispered.

Tidus fumbled with the portrait, trying to get it back on the wall. It was harder than it looked.

"Here's your water—" The guard returned, and immediately spotted Tidus with the portrait. "Hey!"

"I'm sorry! I knocked it off the wall by accident!"

The guard handed the water to Yuna, and went to help. They hung the painting right, and the guard gave him an exasperated look. "Don't touch the portraits!"

"Sorry! I'm still half asleep, and so clumsy!"

Still slightly annoyed, he looked at Yuna. "Is there anything else I can do for you, Lady Yuna?"

"No, that's all. Thank you."

He nodded curtly, and resumed his post.

"I think I need some air," said Yuna to Tidus, loud enough for the guard to hear. "Will you escort me outside?"

"Of course," he held his arm out to her, and they left the mansion.

Yuna led them to the Farplane, which had a deep and long enough hall that they could have a bit of privacy. It wasn't ideal, but time was of the essence.

"What did you find?"

Tidus took out the three items. "I'm not sure which of these he referred to, so I just took them all?"

"Alright, so a sphere, a ring, and…" she unrolled the paper. "A map of Spira."

Tidus looked over her shoulder. "What's this?" He pointed at a tiny red X on the end of a string of islands.

"That's Al Bhed territory. I don't know what that would be."

"Let's remember it for later. Now, the ring?"

"Not sure. Might be sentimental, or valuable. I don't think it's what he was alluding to."

"Okay, and then this sphere?"

"Let's watch it," Yuna urged, with thinly veiled excitement. It seemed like she was getting a thrill from this mystery.

Tidus set it on the ground and allowed the image to project. The scene was a room, Jyscal sat at his desk, facing away from the camera and a servant stood back, listening.

"When I finish this recording, I will give it to you, Orlus. When I die, I want you to put it behind my portrait in the lobby. Tell no one, absolutely no one about it."

"You have my word, My Lord."

"After I pass, no matter how it happens, and this deed is complete, I want you to leave Guadosalam. I don't care where you go, but for your own safety, and the safety of Spira, go."

"Yes my lord. But if I may speak freely, you're certainly not that old. You're in great health. Do you anticipate this happening soon?"

"Yes. In fact, any day now." He turned to face the sphere, and to talk to them.

Tidus paused the recording and pointed to a grid on the desk. "Hey wait, is that a calendar?"

"Yes, and it's dated to almost three weeks ago."

"And in Luca, the announcer said that Seymour became Maester a fortnight ago. Isn't that two weeks?"

She nodded.

"To you who are watching this sphere. I don't know who you are. But know I trust no one more with this information. What I am about to tell you is the absolute truth, on my honor as a Guado, and Maester of Yevon. I will leave this world soon, and if my hunches are correct, it will be at the hand of my own son, Seymour. Though this act is heinous, I can not fault him, for the world has not been kind to him or his mother. And I did not do my best to protect them. Seymour has become twisted, vile, and thirsts for violence. I fear that if he is not stopped, Spira will pay. If I am to die of natural causes, I will pass my signet ring onto my successor. But if I am to meet an early demise, the ring will be with this sphere. That is my proof that Seymour has done me in."

Tidus looked meaningfully at the ring in his hand.

"During the recent talks with my son, I find myself doubting the truth of my wife's demise as well. The map that you found is the temple to which Seymour and his mother were sequestered to. In the months following her death, I never could see her in the Farplane, and I fear something horrible had befallen her. Please, if you are watching this sphere, stop my son, by any means necessary. And if you can, please find out what happened to my wife."

The sphere ended, and the couple stood in silence, staring at it.

"Wow." Said Tidus, without much else to say. What could he say? 'You really dodged that bullet'?

Yuna's only answer was a sniff. He glanced at her to see her crying.

"Oh Yuna…"

"I'm so foolish," She sobbed. "I thought…Seymour was a good and honorable man, that he only had my best interests at heart."

"You couldn't have known—"

"But he's a murderer! I would have signed my own death certificate with a marriage to him!"

Tidus frowned. "Well, not necessarily, but it is worth investigating why he wanted to marry you. Because we both know he wasn't in it for the peace and happiness of Spira."

Yuna clenched her eyes shut, trying not to cry more. "I was so stupid…"

"No, no, stop that." He wrapped his arms around her shoulders and pulled her into a hug. He had disagreed with her decision to even consider the proposal. And everyone else had told her it was a bad idea.

But Yuna was smart. She had her reasons, even though she wasn't being completely honest about them.

"Thank you," she whispered, pecking his cheek before pulling out of the hug. "And thank you for not rubbing it in my face and saying, 'I told you so'."

"Oh I wouldn't do that…at least not to you."

She couldn't help but giggle.

"Let's go back to the Farplane and talk to Jyscal. He can confirm what we saw in the sphere."

"Good idea! Would you hang onto the stuff we found?"

"Of course, My Lady."

She blanched. "Could you not call me that? Seymour uses that all the time. It just feels…icky."

"I totally understand, My Dearest."

Yuna smiled at that. "Thank you." She took his hand and led him back into the Farplane, where they had been earlier in the day.

At this time of night, or morning now, the platform was completely empty. Even the guard at the door was gone.

Yuna took her place at the podium, Tidus by her side, and rested her hand in the sphere.

Her abundance of people appeared again, and she glanced over them all.

She grimaced.

"What's wrong?"

"I don't see him."

"Can you like, call out to him? Maybe he's up there somewhere."

She closed her eyes and focused, and all the other figures faded away.

"He's not there," she lamented.

"Why not? He was here earlier. Unless he doesn't want to talk to us…?"

She turned to look at him, pale and fearful. "I fear something worse than that. I think he left the Farplane."

Tidus' eyes widened. "You can do that?"

"Not that I know of for certain. There's old wives tales and ghost stories that might hold some truth. But Lord Jyscal did not look well, even in death. And he didn't have a clean death. I fear Seymour never sent him, and he was only in the Farplane to contact someone."

"Of course Seymour wouldn't send him. Then he couldn't tell anyone about his murder. So, where did he go?"

"I don't know, but…he's probably a fiend somewhere."

"A Maester in life, and a fiend in death. That's…that's worse than murder. We have to stop him. Somehow."

Yuna looked at Tidus' jacket pocket, where she had seen him stash the movie sphere away in. "Jyscal said to stop him by any means possible. Do you think…we'll have to fight him?"

"Fine by me. Let's fight him, and kill him and not send him, then he can be a fiend and suffer like his father is." Tidus had never met Lord Jyscal, but by the bitterness in his voice, you'd think he cared a lot about him.

The thing was, Tidus was a victim in a cruel father-son relationship. And for a father to finally be the victim and the son the villain…well, it made his stomach churn.

"For now," he placed a hand on the small of her back. "Let's get back to the mansion, and get some sleep. We can't do anything tonight."

"You're right, of course. I'm glad I can share a room with Rikku and Lulu, but…"

"I know. I wish I was there too." He turned his back to her and started walking back.

But Yuna crashed into him from behind, wrapping her arms around his waist.

"Yuna?"

"It shouldn't have been surprising," she began. "Every time I spoke with Seymour, I would get this sinking feeling in my gut. Remember before operation Mi'ihen? I told you I had this sense of dread that something was going to go wrong."

"I remember," he rested a hand on top of hers.

"I had the same feeling with Seymour. I just didn't understand why. I thought maybe…maybe if I didn't go along with whatever he wanted, something bad would happen."

"Like what? What could he do?"

"I thought maybe, he'd find a way to end my pilgrimage."

"Could he really do that?"

"He can't forbid me, but he could ban me from the temples, or convince Wakka and Lulu to force me to stop, or have me imprisoned or—"

"You've been worrying about this for a while." He noted.

She hugged him tighter, burying her face between his shoulder blades.

"If it bothered you so much, why didn't you say anything?"

"They wouldn't have taken me seriously. They didn't take you seriously, so…"

He scoffed. "Yeah, but Yuna, I'm not from Spira. I'm not beholden to Yevon. And I'm a guy. Any weird feelings I get, are automatically going to be written off as jealousy. And it was."

She curled her fingers in his clothes. "I don't always feel like I'm being listened to."

"Really?"

"I feel like…the others listen to me, because I'm the summoner, and they're supposed to do what I ask. But I feel like…they discount what I say because I'm so young. It was like that the whole time I was training. 'Are you sure? Are you sure?' Everyday for ten years, they made me feel like…like I wasn't thinking right."

"You feel like they agree with you, because they have to, not because they understand and really agree?"

"Yes!" She threw her arms up in frustration. Meek little Yuna seemed to explode in anger as she paced the platform. Tidus cautiously turned to face her. "I know that I don't know everything, but the least they could do is give me the benefit of a doubt!"

"I'm sorry you feel that way."

She paled immediately and started to backpedal. "Not you though! You always listen to me. I feel like I can tell you anything and you really listen to what I'm saying. I appreciate that about you."

"Of course I listen to you. You're the most interesting and wisest person I know."

She blushed. "Thank you."

"At any rate, thank you for explaining things to me a bit more. I understand what you were thinking. I'm not upset anymore."

She breathed a sigh of relief and rested a hand on her chest. "Thank goodness."

"Now," he wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Let's get to bed. If we're tired in the morning, Auron will give us crap for it."

She giggled. "We better go right to sleep then!"

As they walked back to the manor, a thought struck Tidus.

"Hey, we had our first fight! It's like we're a real married couple!"

"My parents never fought." Yuna argued back.

"Do you want to go back and ask them? I'm sure they did, just in private."

"That would be something they'd hide from us."

"'Us'?"

She looked away from him quickly. "Oh…I didn't mean to say that. I…had a brother."

"What happened?" He winced. "If I can ask. I haven't heard anyone mention him before."

"He died with my mother. They were on a ship to visit family on Bikanel Island. Sin attacked, and the boat sank. Only one man survived, and that's how we know what happened."

"But he wasn't with your parents in the Farplane? Or was he older and I just didn't see him?"

She shook her head. "The boat sank. There were no summoners to do a sending. My mother must have accepted death, but Talcott…he's probably a fiend out in the ocean." She made her lips into a thin line. "It would be best if you didn't tell anyone about this. Lulu and Wakka don't know."

"Why? You and your father are so famous. Why doesn't anyone know that your mother is Al Bhed? Why is your brother just…gone?"

"He looked more Al Bhed than me. He also had one blue eye, and one green. But his hair was blonde like Rikku. We were both so little, I barely remember him. But…you know Yevon and the Al Bhed."

"So they just pretend that part of you doesn't exist?"

"Basically. They knew that my father married an Al Bhed. He was never given any fanfare at the temples, and was often harassed. His journey must have been the hardest."

"But he's beloved now."

"He wouldn't be, if it was public knowledge. You heard what he said, 'when she defeats Sin, anything you did wrong will be overlooked.'"

"That's stupid and unfair."

"For now. But when I beat Sin, I want you to tell everyone that I'm half Al Bhed. An Al Bhed became a Summoner and killed Sin. That'll show them!" She beamed.

"Me? You think they'll listen to me?"

"The Husband of the High Summoner? You'll be living in the lap of luxury. You'll be interviewed for books and spheres…everyone will want to hear you tell the story."

"And what will you be doing?"

She was quiet for a while, her hands clasped behind her back. Then, with a coy smile, she turned to glance at him. "I'll be sleeping. After all, I'm going to be the one doing all the work."

He smiled right back, "okay, Wise Guy. And I bet you expect me to carry you all the way back to Besaid."

"I'd prefer a bridal carry over piggy back."

He scoffed. "Then I better get to work practicing my deadlift!"

In the morning, the horrible storm had passed. Now only the regular rain and lighting remained in the Thunder Plains.

After a light breakfast, the group packed up and departed from Guadosalam.

Only to hesitate at the exit.

Well, only one party member hesitated.

"Do we have to go through here?" Asked Rikku, curled in on herself. "Can't we go around?"

"Going around the Thunder Plains would add a week or more to the journey," said Auron, coldly. "We go forward."

"What if…I went around? And met up with you guys later?"

Tidus patted her back. "Come on, Rikku. You can't be afraid of a little thunder."

A flash of lightning shot across the sky, and Rikku literally jumped in the air and scrambled up on Kimahri. "I'm not scared of the thunder! I'm scared of the lightning!"

"There's no reason to be, if we move quickly," Auron assured. "Lingering on the flat plain is what will do us in."

Rikku pouted.

"Let's go."

There wasn't much opportunity for chit chat on the plains. They were moving quickly, and thunder almost constantly rumbled above.

Finally, they reached the halfway point where there was an Al Bhed rest stop.

Rikku begged for sanctuary, pitifully.

"No. It's a waste of time. There will always be thunder. It's not going to subside."

"Please? Just 15 minutes. Just to calm down?"

Auron was about to put his foot down and leave her behind, when Yuna declared, "actually. I could use a break as well."

Auron huffed, but stalked towards the door. "Fine. 15 minutes!"

Inside, Yuna went to the counter and asked for a room.

"Yuna?" Asked Lulu.

"I just need a minute," she responded, with a slight smile.

"I'll uh…I'll stand watch." Tidus announced as he followed her into the hall where the rooms were.

"Are you okay?" He asked.

"Yes. Just thinking." She closed and locked the door behind him. "Can I see Jyscal's sphere, please?"

He took it out. "Why? Did you think of something?"

She set it on the floor and watched it. Then rewound it and played it again.

"Can I ask what's on your mind?" He tried again. Usually Yuna was pretty easy to read, but this whole situation with Seymour and Jyscal had thrown him for a loop.

"I'm just…wondering. Lord Jyscal was a true devout of Yevon. He brought the faith to the Guado. I don't think he would have been as successful if he didn't truly believe."

"And?"

"And…he asks us to stop Seymour any way possible."

"Because Seymour is a murderer. That's pretty definitive."

"Right, but…why didn't he tell us to take this sphere to Maester Mika? Why leave Seymour's fate in our hands? Why not let the church deal with him?"

Tidus didn't have an answer for her, but by the way she clasped her hands under her mouth, he feared she had come to her own conclusion, and it wasn't good.