Tourism Pitfalls [Various, Closed] (Griever?)

[Hiko]

Besaid had been a sea of tanned skin and harsh accents. Maria had taken time off the tour boat long enough to find some decent information on summoners, the fayth, and aeons, but there had other sorts of discoveries that had called at her attention before she'd managed to delve too deeply into history lessons.
Though it had taken some time for her to grasp the handling of spheres, the young mage was quickly learning to love them – for their size, they were more capable than the average book at holding long-worded tomes. More importantly, they were easy to write in (or was the term “record”?). Maria had decided to purchase a blank sphere before running back to catch the small ship. If anything else, the girl thought, grinning wildly, it would be easier to speak than jot – at least insofar as certain spell tomes were concerned.
–

The passing from Besaid to the Gulch was less than thrilling, as boat rides went. Sea, sea, and more sea coursed by, and Maria found herself once more leaning over the railing of the vessel. This time, however, she would not plan to soak her clothing.
The air was as salty as ever, and as night began to fall, the humidity of the day began to wane. As the crew began ushering its accompanying tourists to their cabins for the evening, Maria lingered on the deck. Since Besaid, she hadn't caught sight of her nameless savior from earlier in the day. It was a pity, she thought with an unhappy sigh – she hadn't had much in the way of companionship since leaving Altea. Synen had disappeared to who-knew-where, and now without even her nameless stranger, she felt a bit more like herded cattle than a proper customer. Ah well, she thought to herself as she finally left for her own cabin, at least they haven't started tagging us for farmlands yet.
–

The Gulch appeared before breakfast.
Too-bright light spilled down into her modest room, and Maria grunted in disdain. It wasn't until she had dragged herself from bed and squinted out the tiny window that she felt any sort of eagerness for the new day. Sleeping in ships had never been a skillset she'd learned well, and she ached from neck to ankles from the constant rocking. Stretching out before donning fresh clothes, Maria felt every joint in her body crack and pop. She blinked around the room in a fresh-from-slumbered haze, she couldn't recall where she'd placed that journal sphere. Her bag's strappings were slung over the short post of the bed, with the snap-locked cover folded open.
The sphere wasn't there.
Frowning, she wondered if it hadn't tumbled out during the night – the bag was hardly the deepest carry-on in the world, and with all the noise of the crew and the sounds of waves crashing against the sides of the ship, Maria doubted she'd've heard the little glowball fall. Bending over, she ducked her head under the bed. The sphere was caught between the wall of the cabin and the post of the bedframe.
“Well, you're just a jerk,” she scorned the sphere while clamoring under the bed like a child to reach for it.
She couldn't very well leave the exact item needed to record the Gulch's clairvoyants in action.
–

Maria hated standing in lines. Her fingers drummed along the curve of her most prized purchase as she waited her turn with the gulgans. What seemed like hours passed by – surely, she'd get her chance before the crew called to board.
An elderly woman with glazed eyes and a painted face was the one to finally call her forward.
“You there, girl, speak your questions and I will answer as I am able.”
For a moment, Maria hesitated – shouldn't a seer know the questions before they were asked?
“Only when the girl asking knows what she desires to learn.”
That startled the young woman. She took a step back, and frowned, “How did you-”
“That is unimportant. You have three questions.”
What the hell. “What caused the Merge?”
“Magic.”
“That's hardly an answer.”
“It is the only answer you need, for now.”
“Hmph. All right. What kind of magic?”
“The only kind that could: Desperation. You have one question left.”
Well, this was getting her nowhere fast. Maria decided that rather than waste her last question for the queen – and get nothing for it, considering the past two answers – she would ask for her own sake. “What do you see in my future?”
“Servitude. You will live and die as a servant for those better than yourself.”
“That's obvious. I'm my queen's woma-”
“Not for Hilda. Soon, never for Hilda again.”
The hairs on the back of Maria's neck stood tall. “What do you mean?”
“You have asked three, and I have answered them – some more than I should.”
“And all of them not at all enough!” the girl nearly shouted back.
“Away. Away before your trouble finds you now rather than soon. Go back to your little boat, back to your little city, and do not forget: You owe service.”
–

That night, Maria mulled over the old woman's words as they replayed through her tiny, glowing, tell-all.
She owed service? If not to her queen, then to whom?
A dark thought occurred to her as the recording dimmed: Was it to whom, or to what?

[Griever]

Rheis was glad when they had finally left Besaid. The passengers of the small ship had crossed to the dock in droves, intent on seeing the home of the High Summoner, or more likely, on finding the Lady Yuna herself. Even four years since the beginning of the Eternal Calm, they would shower her with praise and thanks, ask for advice, gossip for weeks over the slightest glimpse of her, but they wouldn't truly appreciate what she had done. They knew nothing of the hardship she had endured, of the pain and the loss and of the times in the night, when the rest of the world turned away, that the deep, consuming loneliness set in and the weight of the journey felt like too much to bear. He did - he remembered it all too well. Even if she were standing next to him, Rheis would not have given her shallow thanks, because words could never be enough.

But the island was finally behind them, and they moved forward again, through brilliantly clear blue water that crashed steadily against the hull in a foaming white spray that turned to a fine mist upon the deck. One more stop and then, finally, they would come to their destination. Gulgan Gulch was an area that held little interest for him. Clairvoyants, they said, seers - he regarded the entire concept with pure derision. But the stop would give him time to think, at least, consider where exactly he wanted to go once they docked in Poft. Al Zahbi was a likely candidate, part of a much larger empire that ever seemed to have need of a few more swords. The pay would be good, better than anything he'd found in a long while, and the work would be steady there.

He was still considering it when the boat made its stop at the tiny port. Before long he was alone in his place at the rail, and as he waited he found himself watching the water again, thinking for perhaps the tenth time since they had departed about how different things were. Freedom from the fear of an attack by Sin seemed an almost impossible luxury, yet most of the travelers onboard had never even heard of the creature. He almost laughed at himself, then; no matter how far he thought he'd gone from the past, it always seemed to return to his mind, chasing him.

"You've lost a great deal."

The voice was startlingly close. Rheis turned toward it with his hand automatically reaching for his blade, only to find that he'd left it in his quarters below. The speaker, however, was no threat - a child, she was, no more than ten years old by his guess. She stood on the pier with her face turned directly toward him, though her eyes had a peculiar glassiness to them that clearly stated that there was no sight in them.

"You've suffered," she continued in her oddly clear voice, tilting her head a little to the side, her vacant eyes still seeming to stare directly through him. "Very much. But there's going to be more."

His eyes narrowed as he watched her. Child or no, this game was going too far - speaking of things she knew absolutely nothing of. "Who are you?"

"You failed once. It still haunts you. You have another chance now, though, even though it won't be easy. But you'll have to quit running away first. You've been running so long, do you know how to stop?"

That was like a lightning bolt. Unconsciously, Rheis grabbed the railing with one hand. This girl was too young, she couldn't possibly know of the horror wrought by Sin, let alone of one pilgrimage out of many that died on the Calm Lands, died as Caden had died. He saw it then, in his mind, clear as if it were happening in front of him again - could almost feel the pain of his own old wounds as his closest friend and only guardian threw himself forward, gasped terribly as the fiend's claws sunk deep into him, and then fell. He'd been smiling, Rheis remembered.

He felt as though he would be sick.

With a considerable effort he steadied himself, turned his eyes back toward the girl with a thousand questions fighting in his mind, but the travelers were returning now, and she was lost in the mass of them. Straightening, slowly, he put his other hand on the rail and leaned over, shutting his eyes, tightening his grip until his hands weren't shaking.

He didn't go back below deck that night. He sat at the edge of the upper level with his back to the wall and he thought - about the child's words, about countless things he'd believed to be buried in the past, and because it kept tugging at his mind, about her expression: a strange and profound sorrow in those blind eyes that had been beyond her years.