Final Fantasy X Oneshot: Ten
Ten - Final Fantasy X Oneshot, Spira central, 1268 words. (16/01/06)
10
It is but a drop in the ocean when the cries of a newborn child wail out into the world; for the world itself is in tears, Sin dropping like a gentle rain on the ruins of Zanarkand. Though he is too new and too young to remember or to understand the celebration and the commemoration, this flimsy memory of a buzz in his ears will shape his life. That his own cry is drowned out by that of the many will always stay with him. That his birthday sees the death of a hero, and the birth of peace.
This is the start of the Calm.
9
On his first birthday, he walks. It is in the theatre that he climbs up out of his seat, his mother absorbed in her movie sphere beside him, and takes his first journey into the real world. Clumsy but unsupported, he bobbles along out into the aisle. No one notices; or, if they do, they are simply unconcerned. What’s wrong with taking a little walk? He is a happy child, wandering freely and without worry.
But when he makes his way out into the lobby, stumbling through the door after a few giggling teenagers, things change: instead of people sitting in chairs and raptly drowning themselves in spheres, here the tides move with such force that he is stunned silent for a moment. Lost in a sea of feet and shoes and legs that burst around him like waves, the population is too much for a baby to understand, and it makes him stumble, clench his hands into little balls, and fall backwards onto his behind. He stares upwards as some of the passing people slip by, without touching him but always surrounding him.
It takes more than ten minutes for his mother to find him, crying on the ground. No one hears him in the noise of music and video spheres.
8
He gets so much for his second birthday that it feels like he’s Prince of the World - and truly, this is what he thinks as he rolls his signed blitzball into his parents’ room. He feels good about himself: he’s brought the ball to share, because he has to be a nice Prince and play with the less fortunate people, because that’s what Yevon would do. Because his parents don’t own anything.
7
It’s a big, bustling day when they go to the zoo, and he takes his new puppy and his mommy with him. He holds her hand, but even though she wouldn’t let him have the leash, puppy keeps jumping at him and bumping into his legs. He tells it to stop and be quiet, because he’s three years old now, and puppy is only one, and Yevon doesn’t like bad dogs!
He spends most of his time at the zoo telling those animals what to do, too, when he learns that they are almost all only one year old.
But there are balloons, and candy, and people dressed up and dancing and playing funny music! And there are things to climb on, statues and a bunch of animal footprints in the ground that he steps in and jumps from, big bear paws and little fox feet, and he pushes through the crowds to make faces at the monkeys and blow his cheeks out at the fish and rap at the bugs and throw stones at the water when the otters don’t come up.
No one sees him or yells at him, and the stones sink to the bottom and disappear; but puppy bounds up and leaps at the back of his legs, and licks at his knees, and almost pushes him over into the dark waters.
6
Kindergarten is scary, but after the first days full of tears and fears, when mommy and dad make it clear that they aren’t coming to save him, he learns to sit and be quiet. No one asks him questions, so it’s okay.
They learn stuff about blocks and drawing and the Prayer, and one day he even gets to bring his puppy in for show and tell. He feels special and different because he’s the oldest in the class. Some of the other kids are even only four years old. Like Jakku, and Salli, and both Braskas.
Why are there so many other kids named Braska?
But he’s quiet, and won’t ask.
5
He realizes this year that no one has ever come to his birthday parties.
4
And now he knows why.
3
When he turns seven, he has a real party. A real, big, loud party. The dog is put in the hallway for the day, and all his friends and classmates from school come and they bring presents, and there’s music and cake and drinks and they blitz in the back yard.
All their parents come over, too, and sit on plastic chairs beside the beach, watching him and his friends play in the water. There’s a big party outside, like there is every year on this day, but he’s come to understand that they are not one and the same; that Spira - that’s his world, you know - doesn’t all celebrate his birthday. That’s okay, too, because that sort of attention makes him a little scared. Even now, with all his friends, he’s a little confused. Because they all seem so happy as they splash and do the Sublimely Magnificent Jecht Shot Mark III and end up kicking water at each other.
But all their parents look so sad.
2
The schoolday after his birthday, they learn all about Spira’s past. About the Ronsos, and the temples, how to write the Prayer right - Ieyui nobomeno Renmiri Yo Juyogo, Hasate kanae Kutamae - and that High Summoners are the ones that have beat Sin, and that High Summoner Braska, along with his guardians Auron and Jecht, were the last to beat Sin. That they went to the ruins of Zanarkand and fought Sin, and they did the Final Summoning.
All on the day of his birthday.
It’s amazing. And it’s scary.
It’s scary.
1
He’s been told that he’s beyond his years. It’s because he’s quiet, and works hard. He likes to read books, too: all about Spira, and its history, and Yevon. And the heathen Al Bhed, and the evil machina. And Sin.
There’s one more year. On his tenth birthday, Sin will come.
Of course, he knows, logically with math he’s learned and all the information he’s read, that Sin won’t show up on his birthday; it’ll come a month or two early, a week maybe, or even sometimes late, and that Spira used to hold its breath when that happened, wondering if maybe, finally, it was gone.
Sitting alone in his room on his ninth birthday, he holds his breath, too. He wonders what it’s like to be Sent to the Farplane. He wonders what it’s like to die. He hopes that Sin will come late.
But there’s one more year. And on his tenth birthday, Sin will come.
He holds his breath until he passes out. No one hears him when he falls. No one comes upstairs to see if he’s alright. The sound of the world around them, all the people and all the noise, all the life, like the rush of waves and the inescapable flow of the tides and the echoes of the darkest deepest seas, drown him out.
The world goes dark. He sees swirls behind his eyelids, ripples of light and shadow. And then, Pyreflies. And the Farplane.
And he dreams. It’s but a drop in the ocean of dreams, but he does. He dreams.
That this is the End of the Calm.
0
10
It is but a drop in the ocean when the cries of a newborn child wail out into the world; for the world itself is in tears, Sin dropping like a gentle rain on the ruins of Zanarkand. Though he is too new and too young to remember or to understand the celebration and the commemoration, this flimsy memory of a buzz in his ears will shape his life. That his own cry is drowned out by that of the many will always stay with him. That his birthday sees the death of a hero, and the birth of peace.
This is the start of the Calm.
9
On his first birthday, he walks. It is in the theatre that he climbs up out of his seat, his mother absorbed in her movie sphere beside him, and takes his first journey into the real world. Clumsy but unsupported, he bobbles along out into the aisle. No one notices; or, if they do, they are simply unconcerned. What’s wrong with taking a little walk? He is a happy child, wandering freely and without worry.
But when he makes his way out into the lobby, stumbling through the door after a few giggling teenagers, things change: instead of people sitting in chairs and raptly drowning themselves in spheres, here the tides move with such force that he is stunned silent for a moment. Lost in a sea of feet and shoes and legs that burst around him like waves, the population is too much for a baby to understand, and it makes him stumble, clench his hands into little balls, and fall backwards onto his behind. He stares upwards as some of the passing people slip by, without touching him but always surrounding him.
It takes more than ten minutes for his mother to find him, crying on the ground. No one hears him in the noise of music and video spheres.
8
He gets so much for his second birthday that it feels like he’s Prince of the World - and truly, this is what he thinks as he rolls his signed blitzball into his parents’ room. He feels good about himself: he’s brought the ball to share, because he has to be a nice Prince and play with the less fortunate people, because that’s what Yevon would do. Because his parents don’t own anything.
7
It’s a big, bustling day when they go to the zoo, and he takes his new puppy and his mommy with him. He holds her hand, but even though she wouldn’t let him have the leash, puppy keeps jumping at him and bumping into his legs. He tells it to stop and be quiet, because he’s three years old now, and puppy is only one, and Yevon doesn’t like bad dogs!
He spends most of his time at the zoo telling those animals what to do, too, when he learns that they are almost all only one year old.
But there are balloons, and candy, and people dressed up and dancing and playing funny music! And there are things to climb on, statues and a bunch of animal footprints in the ground that he steps in and jumps from, big bear paws and little fox feet, and he pushes through the crowds to make faces at the monkeys and blow his cheeks out at the fish and rap at the bugs and throw stones at the water when the otters don’t come up.
No one sees him or yells at him, and the stones sink to the bottom and disappear; but puppy bounds up and leaps at the back of his legs, and licks at his knees, and almost pushes him over into the dark waters.
6
Kindergarten is scary, but after the first days full of tears and fears, when mommy and dad make it clear that they aren’t coming to save him, he learns to sit and be quiet. No one asks him questions, so it’s okay.
They learn stuff about blocks and drawing and the Prayer, and one day he even gets to bring his puppy in for show and tell. He feels special and different because he’s the oldest in the class. Some of the other kids are even only four years old. Like Jakku, and Salli, and both Braskas.
Why are there so many other kids named Braska?
But he’s quiet, and won’t ask.
5
He realizes this year that no one has ever come to his birthday parties.
4
And now he knows why.
3
When he turns seven, he has a real party. A real, big, loud party. The dog is put in the hallway for the day, and all his friends and classmates from school come and they bring presents, and there’s music and cake and drinks and they blitz in the back yard.
All their parents come over, too, and sit on plastic chairs beside the beach, watching him and his friends play in the water. There’s a big party outside, like there is every year on this day, but he’s come to understand that they are not one and the same; that Spira - that’s his world, you know - doesn’t all celebrate his birthday. That’s okay, too, because that sort of attention makes him a little scared. Even now, with all his friends, he’s a little confused. Because they all seem so happy as they splash and do the Sublimely Magnificent Jecht Shot Mark III and end up kicking water at each other.
But all their parents look so sad.
2
The schoolday after his birthday, they learn all about Spira’s past. About the Ronsos, and the temples, how to write the Prayer right - Ieyui nobomeno Renmiri Yo Juyogo, Hasate kanae Kutamae - and that High Summoners are the ones that have beat Sin, and that High Summoner Braska, along with his guardians Auron and Jecht, were the last to beat Sin. That they went to the ruins of Zanarkand and fought Sin, and they did the Final Summoning.
All on the day of his birthday.
It’s amazing. And it’s scary.
It’s scary.
1
He’s been told that he’s beyond his years. It’s because he’s quiet, and works hard. He likes to read books, too: all about Spira, and its history, and Yevon. And the heathen Al Bhed, and the evil machina. And Sin.
There’s one more year. On his tenth birthday, Sin will come.
Of course, he knows, logically with math he’s learned and all the information he’s read, that Sin won’t show up on his birthday; it’ll come a month or two early, a week maybe, or even sometimes late, and that Spira used to hold its breath when that happened, wondering if maybe, finally, it was gone.
Sitting alone in his room on his ninth birthday, he holds his breath, too. He wonders what it’s like to be Sent to the Farplane. He wonders what it’s like to die. He hopes that Sin will come late.
But there’s one more year. And on his tenth birthday, Sin will come.
He holds his breath until he passes out. No one hears him when he falls. No one comes upstairs to see if he’s alright. The sound of the world around them, all the people and all the noise, all the life, like the rush of waves and the inescapable flow of the tides and the echoes of the darkest deepest seas, drown him out.
The world goes dark. He sees swirls behind his eyelids, ripples of light and shadow. And then, Pyreflies. And the Farplane.
And he dreams. It’s but a drop in the ocean of dreams, but he does. He dreams.
That this is the End of the Calm.
0