Blue Chapter 5
The bell on the wall of the office rang, indicating that Baralai had a visitor.
Sleepily, he looked at the bell as if daring it to ring again. It wasn’t that he’d had a restless night, but he had been awake for a good portion of the sleeping hours, and Gippal had risen early to a call from an Al Bhed associate of his.
The bell rang again.
Baralai sighed. He would have to deal with a visitor - which wasn’t what he wanted right now. He’d just taken a concoction which he thought would help with his headache, but it wasn’t showing any signs of working just yet. He was hoping to get a little more time to himself before dealing with people-
The bell rang yet again, and this time it seemed more insistent and actually, Baralai was afraid to admit he noticed, furious with him.
He pressed the button next to the bell reluctantly, said “Come in,” into the microphone, and then pressed the other button that unlocked the door. Farplane energy was an amazing thing, indeed, because it brought about automatic door systems like this one to save everyone the trouble of getting up. Sometimes Baralai wondered if that was really a good thing.
“Baralai,” said Nhadala, who was presently walking in through his door. “Is Gippal here?”
Baralai hardly wanted to deal with people, much less his current lover’s ex-girlfriend. “I haven’t seen him this morning,” he admitted, then actually stopped to notice Nhadala’s almost frantic expression. “Is… something wrong?”
“Yes,” Nhadala said quickly. “Strange corpse-like creatures came out of nowhere on the Moonflow and destroyed a bunch of our machines. I-“
“Not the zombies again,” Baralai muttered into his hands. He thought this problem had gone away. “I apologize, Nhadala, I’ll send for Gippal, and-“
“No, listen,” Nhadala continued. “They were talking. They said You disturbed us.” She had lowered her voice and grunted the sentence, even going so far as to hold her arms out in front of her as if mimicking the pose of the zombies - but then she was back to a serious tone. “They killed almost everybody. We were lucky to escape.”
“What?” This was news to Baralai. The zombies hadn’t said anything of note up to this point - not that he knew of, anyway. They just grunted and attacked people and ran around.
“And what do you mean, again?” Nhadala crossed her arms and stared at Baralai - at least, he assumed she was staring at him. She was still wearing her goggles. “You mean you knew about them?”
“They’ve been making a nuisance of themselves,” Baralai muttered. His headache came back in overwhelming force, threatening to drive his brain out through his eyes. “But not that badly. I thought we had taken care of them all - I’d sent Gippal to-“
“And where is Gippal? The worms in the desert ate two more of our excavators and now we’re back to the run-down pieces of junk we scrapped together last year. He really needs to stop dallying here and get back to-“
“Lady Nhadala?”
Nhadala turned toward the voice of one of Baralai’s guards, who was holding the hand of a small child. “She was crying for you,” the guard explained.
Nhadala crouched down and held out her arms. “Ruhao, fryd'c fnuhk?” Honey, what’s wrong? she asked as the child - a young girl with blonde hair tied in pigtails - ran-stumbled forward into her arms.
Baralai was in shock as he watched this scene, with the little girl crying to Nhadala in Al Bhed, saying something about how she didn’t like it here in this city and how she wanted to go home. The girl was young, two years old at the most, and Baralai had never seen her before.
If she was two years old, then two years ago, Nhadala was still with Gippal - or, rather, they were in the early part of their breakup.
As he watched Nhadala and the girl, Baralai slowly realized that Nhadala and Gippal might have broken up because of this child - or, perhaps, that Nhadala broke up with Gippal because of her. Baralai had certainly never heard Gippal mention anything about having a daughter.
“What are you looking at?” Nhadala was saying to him, breaking him out of his contemplation.
“Is… that your daughter?” Baralai asked stupidly, looking at the little girl whose tears were quickly drying.
“Yes.” Nhadala looked down at the child who was holding her hand. “This is Aisso, my little girl.”
Baralai almost choked. “Aisso?”
“Yes. After a famous woman in our history.”
“And Gippal’s mother.”
Nhadala looked up at Baralai sharply. “How do you know that?”
Baralai put his hand over his eyes. “I’m practically Gippal’s erys, it’s pretty normal that I’d know his mother’s name.”
“Sysy, fru'c ra?” Aisso asked Nhadala, looking at Baralai and biting her thumb.
Baralai recognized easily that Aisso was asking about who he was, so he knelt before the child and introduced himself. “So hysa ec Baralai,” he said, giving her his name, even though he knew his Al Bhed had a terrible accent.
The little girl looked at him, then back up to her mother. “He talks like this,” Nhadala said to Aisso. “In Spiran language.”
“Oh!” Aisso grinned. “You talk silly,” she announced to Baralai. She then tangled her hand in the back of her hair, playing with the ribbons holding up her pigtails.
Baralai couldn’t help but to grin. She was cute, and already he could see the Gippal in her. More remarkably, however, he noticed that her eyes were a very unusual shade of green. They were more of a bluish green, more like water than grass. Her pupils - as far as Baralai could see - had the Al Bhed swirl, but the coloring was very unusual.
She really was Gippal’s child, and her eyes were certain proof of that.
“Don’t tell him,” Nhadala whispered into Baralai’s ear. “If you do, I’ll-“
“She has his eyes,” Baralai said simply. “Did you notice?”
“What?” Nhadala looked confused. “What do you mean?”
“Did you not know?” Baralai looked at Nhadala with concern. “Gippal’s eyes?”
“Eyes? Plural?”
“Yes. His other one is blue. He’s half-Spiran.”
Nhadala gaped. “He’s… what?”
Baralai guessed that she didn’t know. Gippal really had been keeping his secret, hadn’t he? “He’s half-Spiran. He has one green eye and one blue eye.”
“He told you this?”
“No.” Baralai finally looked away, back down at Aisso. “I saw it by accident. He won’t talk about it… I don’t think he even knows that I know.”
“Typical Gippal. He thinks he’s so observant.” Nhadala pulled her goggles up over her forehead, then looked back at Baralai. “So that’s why…”
“Why her eyes are that color,” Baralai finished for her.
“Oh no,” Nhadala whispered, looking over at Aisso. “No, no, no. He’s going to know. He’s going to find out.”
Aisso, by this time, had busied herself with playing with the fringe on a tablecloth on one of Baralai’s sphereshelves. She was braiding the strands together into an intricate pattern.
“Why don’t you want him to know?” Baralai asked in a hushed voice so the child wouldn’t overhear. Then, when Nhadala was silent, he pushed harder. “Did you leave him because of her?”
“Yes,” she finally snapped back. “Because he wasn’t ready for a child. Because he would have forgotten his duties. Because he would have let our new world fall apart to take care of me and her.”
“And you would have been tied down to him,” Baralai observed, trying to withhold his amusement.
“That too,” Nhadala agreed, and Baralai thought that he saw a bit of a smile on her face. “I see he’s told you about us.”
“A bit.” Baralai looked over at the little girl toddling around the corner of his office. “Nhadala, please, tell Gippal about her. He’s always wondered what drove you two apart, and I think he’d like to know.”
“But he’d take her from me.”
Baralai heard a note of uncertainty in Nhadala’s voice, and then realized that this was something she was truly afraid of. He couldn’t understand - why would Gippal do such a thing? “He wouldn’t,” Baralai said. “I can’t imagine he would do that.”
“Not like you think. She’ll learn to rely on him, like we all have.” Nhadala crossed her arms and looked over at Aisso, who had sat down on the floor and was playing with the corner of the carpeting where a few loose strands were coming up. The carpeting was held down by staples, and she was removing the metal prongs and replacing them into their appropriate slots. “I want her to learn that we don’t need men in our lives to be capable, strong women.”
“Like her mother,” Baralai observed carefully. “And her grandmother, it seems.” He watched the little girl - who might one day be his step-daughter - noticing how remarkably dexterous her young fingers were. Was she fixing his carpet?
“I don’t want to take Gippal away from you, either,” Nhadala said, not quite looking at Baralai as she spoke.
“What?”
“If he knows he had a child with me, he’d want to be with me and her… and you two seem happy together, and productive, which is what Gippal needs.”
Baralai shook his head. “It’s a crime for a child to not know both of her parents, especially now that we are in a world safe from Sin.”
Nhadala finally looked up at him. “Maybe you have a point.”
“Besides, I’m not entirely certain I could keep such a secret from him.” Baralai waved back at Aisso, who was waving around a string that she had freed from the carpet. “And maybe she can teach him to grow up a little bit.”
--X--
After Nhadala left, Baralai found that instead of being upset that Gippal had a child that he had never known about, he was actually rather excited. Aisso had waved sweetly at him as they left, and Baralai knew that they would be seeing each other again.
He only hoped that Nhadala could bring herself to tell Gippal. If she didn’t, Baralai knew that someday he would, even if Gippal would probably think that he was just playing a trick on him.
Baralai wandered around the temple for a few minutes, trying to clear his mind, but eventually found himself where he always did - up on the roof. There was a little-used stairwell that led to one of the most secluded spaces in the entire city, and Baralai liked to think that he was the only one who knew about it.
Not even Gippal knew this place was here.
So, Gippal had a child. Reflecting on the circumstances of two years ago, Baralai knew that there was no way that Gippal could know about little Aisso. He remembered how they had gotten together - essentially after several hours of complaining about their women. They had gotten together to complain about their romantic woes, and had wound up sharing a bed. Or, rather, a floor of the Djose temple.
Even though that night he had imbibed far more alcohol than usual, Baralai could still somehow remember the proceedings perfectly. He thought that was probably the case with important moments in life, and that had been one of the most significant in his.
Did Gippal know about the baby?
Baralai replayed the events of that night - almost two years ago now - to try to figure it out.
--X--
Baralai had been drinking for some time when, after a long silence, he noticed Gippal looking at him. "Something's bothering you," Gippal said, looking away after Baralai had noticed. "What's up?"
Baralai had toyed briefly of the idea of keeping his thoughts to himself, but he eventually realized that no good would come of it; Gippal always seemed to be able to read him like a book. "Yuna. And Tidus." His answer was short, but that really said it all.
Gippal had nodded and poured him another drink from their pitcher. "You're still on about her?"
"It's hard not to be when all of Spira is still all fascinated with her -- and rightfully so," Baralai replied. Really, Yuna deserved all the credit which had been given to her -- it was just that he couldn't ever quite handle seeing the Shuyin replica constantly at her side.
It hadn’t taken much for Baralai to notice that his companion for that night wasn’t in the best of spirits either, and he said as much. "You don't seem to be in such a great mood, yourself."
"Nhadala," Gippal explained quickly. They had been on this subject before, and Baralai knew the whole story. "She's still ignoring me."
"I don't understand it," Baralai said. "Why does it seem that the ones we want always ignore us?"
Gippal shook his head, filling up his own drink - and by this time, he had drunk more than enough. "Good question. I thought Nhadala and I had something good, but then she volunteers to go out to the desert and I don't get two words from her."
"And Yuna runs off with that foolish boy the very second he comes back." He paused, watching Gippal carefully. "She even went out of her way to find him -- and for what?"
"She'll probably get tired of him and come running back to you," Gippal pointed out.
"I'm sure that Nhadala will soon tire of the desert and come back to you as well," Baralai answered.
To this, they both laughed and toasted to their respective women ignoring them.
"I just can't believe it," Gippal said afterwards. "It's like I don't even exist to her, like she just used me and left me."
"That doesn't sound like Nhadala," Baralai said. "I can't imagine that she'd do something like that to a guy like you; you seemed to be so close."
"We built this place together, practically," Gippal said, gesturing around himself. "Well, not the temple, you kinda gave that to us, but everything else."
"It must be hard for you to be here, then," Baralai said. "Though you've accomplished so much on your own - without her."
Gippal shook his head. "They can do it all without me. I get bored." He looked up at Baralai. "You must too, if you're out here visiting all the time."
"I never get bored visiting out here.” Baralai avoided the subject of how truly boring a beaurocratic lifestyle was. "It's just about the only thing which can distract me lately."
"From what?"
"The Lady High Summoner and her beloved," Baralai muttered, trying but failing to keep the bitterness from his voice. "It seems that, wherever I turn, there is talk of them -- and it’s not exactly possible to avoid her."
Gippal nodded. "You can't avoid talk of her, I can't avoid Nhadala's fingerprints on all my work -- we're screwed, man."
"Why do we even bother?" Baralai sighed. "Nhadala runs out to the desert and Yuna chooses a zombie over me."
"I don't think he qualifies as a zombie, exactly," Gippal pointed out. "I mean, he doesn't eat brains, does he?"
"He might as well; he could use them," Baralai muttered under his breath.
"You're so bitter - you must be drunk," Gippal informed him. "Here, have more."
"Are you trying to get me drunk -- drunker?" Baralai did take another glass, despite his protests. "Though you have to admit, I really can choose them; all my relationships are either based on abuse of power or are unrequited."
"Except one." Gippal then lifted his eyebrow quizzically. "Or was it?"
Baralai smiled, realizing he was being teased. "It's not saying much, but those few days with you probably were the most stable relationship I've ever had."
"You're kidding," Gippal replied, sputtering a laugh into his drink. "It was fun and all, but I don't know about stable."
"Well, when compared to being the toy of a Maester and the puppet of a spirit..."
"True." Gippal looked away for a moment. "You know, we had a really good idea back then." He paused and scratched of the back of the head - Gippal’s trademark slightly-nervous motion. "Why did we stop again?"
Baralai thought about that for a moment. "I think it had a lot to do with the fact that I thought you were dead."
"What, you didn't want to have sex with me then? I would have been really easy."
"Weren't you always really easy, though?"
"Says the man who needed a stimulant to--"
That was all it took for Baralai to lean over and shove Gippal in the shoulder -- rather harder than he had meant to, because he was drunk. That was what he told himself.
When Gippal's back hit the floor, he exploded into laughter. "Still sensitive about that, I see," he said between fits. "And now you're a big bad Praetor and I'm just a little scrappy Al Bhed, is that it?"
Baralai faltered for a brief moment, but he really was too drunk to brood properly. Instead, he moved to Gippal's fallen body and straddled Gippal's hips. "Just a scrappy Al Bhed, hm? Maybe that's why I need the stimulant..."
"Are you still taking it?" Gippal was still laughing, but Baralai being on him seemed to have calmed him down a bit. "That's so sad, Lai, maybe you really do need to get laid."
Baralai tipped his head back. "Maybe I need to find a zombie of my own."
Gippal blinked. "Ugh, but they’re all gross and… dead.”
Baralai sighed. "Then I suppose that I'm simply out of luck."
Gippal leaned his head back, clunking it on the floor. "Why don't we have sex again? Just for kicks. I could really use the distraction."
"It could be a good distraction, though I don't know if I'm a good replacement for someone like Nhadala."
"I don't want you to be a replacement." Gippal had his hands on Baralai's sides now.
Baralai smiled. "Then let me be your distraction."
"Actually," Gippal said, sitting up. "I'll be yours too."
"It did work well before," Baralai agreed, shifting his position so that he wouldn't fall from his place over Gippal.
Then, Gippal's mouth was pressed to Baralai's neck, one hand unclasping the front of his robe.
Baralai gasped in surprise -- and in pleasure -- as he undid the clasps of Gippal’s armor.
The armor clattered to the floor behind them, partially covered by Baralai's robe as Gippal threw it away from them. The next thing to come off was Baralai's undershirt, which dropped unceremoniously on the ground as Gippal ran his hands over Baralai's bare chest.
Baralai's chest rose eagerly into the touch of those hands, but he couldn't be entirely distracted from his desire to remove Gippal's shirt. This was soon eased over Gippal's head and it joined the small pile of clothes to the side. Greeted with the sight of Gippal’s skin, Baralai couldn't resist tracing the lines of his chest -- first with his hands and then with his lips.
He noticed, however, that Gippal tensed when he touched the scar on his shoulder. This raised mark here was proof of another thing that they shared -- they were rejected by their women, and they had a shared past that bound them together more than any romantic feeling ever could. Baralai had a matching scar on his back to prove it.
Once, Baralai would have backed away from this tensing -- but now, he knew he could trust Gippal, so he pressed his lips over the mark and kissed it gently.
"Lai," Gippal said quietly. "You're being romantic -- stop it."
Baralai rolled his eyes to glance up at Gippal -- but he hadn't yet fully drawn away from his chest. "I'm just admiring every part of you," he pointed out reasonably. "Or, if you'd rather, distracting you." It would do no real good for him to speak his true thoughts about their bond.
"Yeah, distraction -- that's it." Gippal's hands moved now to Baralai's pants, which were quickly removed. This required a shift of position, and Gippal wound up perched over Baralai. He had Baralai by the hips, his fingers digging into the skin as he lowered his mouth to Baralai's stomach.
Baralai hissed through his teeth as his stomach was kissed and his back arched. Though it was rather unfair that Gippal had him like this, Baralai couldn't immediately protest -- and not just because he was having a bit of trouble with forming words -- and so he simply tangled his fingers firmly in the spikes of Gippal's hair.
However, that hair was soon out of his reach. The next thing he knew, pleasure spiked through his body as Gippal kissed him much lower. A shiver ran down his spine as he felt the familiar sensation of Gippal’s mouth closing around the head of his penis. Memories came flooding back to him of their days as Crimson Squad candidates and how Gippal just loved to do this to him - usually in the middle of the night. His technique hadn’t changed any since then - even if he was ostensibly rather out of practice.
Soon enough, Gippal removed himself from his position, and Baralai wrapped his arms around his distraction and pulled him upward. He found himself face-to-face with Gippal, and suddenly Baralai felt uncomfortable.
Gippal was staring at him. They were making eye contact. They were barely a breath away, and Baralai felt the strong impulse to kiss him.
Baralai chose the easiest way to fight against this urge.
It was easy for him to duck his head to the side and lean in to press his lips tightly against Gippal's shoulder. Though it was almost unthinkable for him to want to kiss Gippal on the mouth, it was next to second nature for him to kiss his neck, his shoulder -- or just about anywhere else.
And Gippal responded just as Baralai wanted, and just as he remembered. Even though they were in the abandoned common room, Gippal did not skimp on the vocalizations. Baralai appreciated the encouragement as their bodies pressed together, moving in time with each other.
"Lai," Gippal breathed into his ear. "Let me have you."
--X--
Baralai shook his head - he was getting way too involved in his memory of that particular night. If he thought on it any further, he would wind up having to retire to his room - either that or actually go and find Gippal.
Besides, he had paperwork to finish before that.
Satisfied with this evidence that Gippal did not know about his daughter when they re-consummated their relationship, Baralai turned to descend the stairs that led from the rooftop back down to the private chambers of the Temple. However, as he opened the door to the stairs, he found himself face-to-face with someone very familiar.
Yuna.
He was startled - he hadn’t expected to find anyone else up here. Baralai thought that he was the only one who knew about this place. It made sense, however, that Yuna would know it - and perhaps her father before her.
“Lady Yuna,” Baralai said, bowing his head. “I apologize; I didn’t hear you approach.”
“Oh, it’s okay,” Yuna said, biting her lip. “I thought I was the only one who knew about this place.”
Baralai found himself smiling. “I thought the same thing,” he said. Really, he was rather upset that this one place was no longer just his - he would have to share it with Yuna.
“Are you alright?” Yuna asked. “You look a bit flushed…”
Baralai wasn’t about to reveal that he had just pulled himself out of a particularly engaging fantasy about Gippal - especially not to Yuna - and so he just said, “I just have a lot on my mind.”
Yuna bowed her head, stepping forward onto the roof. “This is a good place to think about things,” she said.
He watched her carefully - the gentle curve of her waist, the way her hair fell at her shoulders, the way she swayed just slightly when she stood with her hands clasped in front of her. “Is that what brought you up here too?” he asked.
She paused before she answered. “Yes. I’m thinking about Sir Auron.”
Baralai found himself taking a step forward toward her, even though he really just wanted to retire to a private place. How could he resist a moment alone with her? - even if it made him feel extremely guilty. First he fantasized about Gippal, and now he was clinging onto a single moment with Yuna. “You look troubled,” he said, standing next to her. “His death,” what was it, the third one now?, “must have been difficult for you.”
Yuna shook her head. “It’s not just that,” she said. “The others keep talking about it. Tidus and Lulu and Gippal, and even Wakka, it’s like they can’t stop talking about it. I don’t want to hear any more! I want to remember the Auron I knew and loved.”
Baralai nodded and put his hand on Yuna’s shoulder - he felt like he could do so this time without her recoiling. “I am sorry, Yuna,” he said quietly. “I feel terrible about this whole situation.”
She leaned into his touch, and then turned and embraced him around the shoulders. Baralai was momentarily paralyzed - Yuna was touching him so closely, holding her body against his, and he was still feeling the lingering effects of his earlier nostalgic dalliance. This was why he didn’t pull her closer - he was afraid of offending her.
Instead, he stroked her hair gently, his fingers feeling the long braid that she wore in the back. “I just wish they’d allow him some dignity,” she said into his shoulder. “Sir Auron does not deserve such treatment.”
“Have you tried telling them this?” Baralai suggested in a whisper.
She shook her head. “It’s their way of grieving again for him… and they were there, so who am I to say what they should do? I know it’s hard, but I just can’t listen, just can’t take it.”
Baralai wanted to tell her how immature it was of Tidus to treat her this way, about how he should always take Yuna’s concerns into account first, but he knew that wouldn’t make Yuna feel any better. He also thought - and perhaps this was influenced by his heightened sexual desire at that moment - that this would be the perfect place to make love, and how it could be his and Yuna’s secret place that only they knew about.
He cursed himself for thinking these things - he had just mentally chastised Tidus for his immaturity and for putting his needs above Yuna’s, and Baralai found that he had just done the same thing. The difference was that he wouldn’t act on those thoughts - at least, not if he could help it.
Baralai pulled himself away from Yuna reluctantly. “I’m glad you know about this place,” he said. “It gives you a place to escape.”
Yuna turned around and looked out over Bevelle. “Yes,” she agreed. “I just need some time to myself every now and then.”
Baralai nodded. “Then I won’t keep you from it,” he said, bowing slightly to her. “Take care, Yuna. If you need anything,” anything, “just ask.”
Yuna turned and regarded Baralai with the smile that made his foundation shake. “Thank you,” she said, then turned her face away shyly.
Baralai recognized this as his dismissal, and so he turned to go back downstairs. He took a moment to splash some cold water on his face, allowing himself to recover from his daydream of Gippal and his difficult-to-control affection for Yuna, and then returned to his office.
He wasn’t even two steps inside his door when he heard Gippal’s voice. He wished that Gippal was saying Lai, let me have you, but instead Gippal said, “Lai, there’s a Commsphere beacon - from Guadosalam.”
A small part of Baralai wanted to throw the office door closed and undress Gippal immediately, but the larger - and more responsible - part of himself stopped any thought of that sort of thing from progressing. “Yes,” Baralai said. “I hope Nooj has good news.”
“Even if he does, he’ll probably make it sound bad,” Gippal pointed out.
“You’re probably right.”
Baralai followed Gippal to the Commsphere, and one look at the screen told him that the news would not be good. No good news ever came when Paine looked so perplexed and Nooj looked so grim - even if Nooj always looked rather grim. Still, the reports from Guadosalam were vital to the effort to stop the fiend invasion; Baralai could not ignore a single one.
“So, what’s the report this time, Noojster?” Gippal asked before Baralai could say anything.
“There hasn’t really been much change,” Nooj said, shaking his head. “The undead fiends are still--“
“The zombies, you mean,” Gippal interrupted.
“The undead fiends,” Nooj repeated firmly, obviously avoiding the colloquial term. “They’re still fleeing from the Farplane, but we did notice something rather strange.”
Paine nodded, picking up the tale. “We always thought that they were leaving with the intention to attack, but now we’re not so sure.”
“What changed your mind?” Baralai asked.
“We tried to engage one of the zombies in battle on its way out of Guadosalam, but it seemed more interested in getting past us than in fighting us,” Paine continued. She had her arms crossed over her chest and she chewed on her lower lip for a moment before speaking again. “It seemed so frantic.” She shook her head and closed her eyes, finishing in a far quieter tone. “The strangest thing, though, was that it didn’t seem to be upset at the prospect of dying; instead it seemed almost relieved that we had killed it.”
From the corner of his eye, Baralai watched as Gippal began to shift uneasily in his chair. Because he knew Gippal so well, Baralai could easily catch the marks of worry on Gippal’s face -- the small worried crease at the center of his forehead, the downward turn of his lips, and the agitation in the green swirl of his eye - and Baralai knew that this was likely tied back to Gippal’s earlier fight with Auron. “Gippal, are you-“
“No. No, I’m really not.” Gippal answered with a short laugh. His every movement read agitation as he stood from his chair, but Gippal somehow managed to keep himself from leaving the room. “What she just said - it’s the exact same as what happened when we fought Auron earlier. He didn’t really seem to care all that much about fighting us, but he sure left us a message when he went down.”
Nooj was the next to speak. “What did he tell you, Gippal?”
“Rest,” Gippal muttered tonelessly. “He said ‘Now I can finally rest.’”
--X--
Those words - Now I can finally rest -- haunted Baralai for the rest of the day and these same words were what caused him to be awake well after midnight. For a brief time, he lingered in bed, but Baralai soon realized that Gippal’s features echoed those of Aisso - Gippal’s daughter -- too closely to allow him any peace. The temptation to share the secret was strong, but Baralai would honor Nhadala’s wishes - even if it meant leaving Gippal to sleep alone.
This was how Baralai found himself in his dimly lit office so late at night. He had positioned himself in front of the chalkboard normally used for meetings - though now it was marked with two phrases having little to do with the usual set of Bevellen political problems. Those two phrases were “You disturbed us” and “Now I can finally rest” which were the only recorded words of the invading fiends; the only problem now was trying to find the meaning behind them.
In order to accomplish this, Baralai had written the very basic facts underneath the phrases on the chalkboard: the souls on the Farplane were clearly being disturbed and they wanted to again find rest - but the biggest problem was discovering what had disturbed them in the first place.
What had changed in Spira recently enough to disturb the dead?
There was the loss of the Summoners and the Sendings - but, if this were the cause, then the problem should have come much sooner.
Then maybe it was the change of Zanarkand from a revered holy city to what amounted to an amusement park - but, again, that had happened so long ago that the disturbance was rather late in coming.
Maybe the actions of Shuyin had set things in motion, caused a small tear which had only just begun to bleed - that could be one possibility, Baralai supposed, but it still didn’t quite seem to fit perfectly. They would probably have seen other effects of that by now - and the mining of the Farplane energy in the past year or so had happened without any problem.
Another answer would be that Spira had begun to accept and even to widely use machina - and machina had been strictly forbidden by the Yevon dogma, as Baralai knew so well. Maybe the fact that machina was becoming so much a part of Spiran life was greatly upsetting those who had died to prevent just that from happening. Maybe the original dogma had it right - maybe there really was something evil in the machines which allowed Spirans to live an easier life.
“I can’t really believe that,” Baralai muttered to himself as he hurriedly erased that particular theory from the board. He had known Gippal - and many other Al Bhed - for far too long to put any faith in the idea that the Al Bhed would propagate something evil throughout Spira. Besides, Baralai thought as he tipped his head back in order to stare at the softly glowing light over head, no evil had come from this new Farplane energy. Quite the opposite, it had only made things more convenient.
But at what cost?
Baralai frowned as he thought on this. This fuel for all these new conveniences - lights included - had come from energy refined from the Farplane. Initially, many studies and tests had been done to ensure that the fuel would work cleanly and safely - but few studies (if any) had been done on the effect on the Farplane of the mining. No one had really thought that it would be important enough to research as it had never really been a problem - until now.
“The Farplane energy -- it’s driving the dead from their rest,” Baralai murmured as soon as the idea struck him. It was a horrible truth, to be sure, but it did make sense - the fiends had only come after the mining had begun and the first attacks did happen rather close to the heart of the operation; they had caused the terrible fiend invasion - and the second deaths of Lord Braska and Auron.
“I have to tell them,” Baralai said as he hurried from his office. “We have to shut down those machines before it’s too late.”
Next chapter.