Taydrcaagan
Title: Taydrcaagan (Deathseeker)
Fandom: Final Fantasy X-2
Characters: Gippal [narrator], Nooj, Baralai
Rating: PG
Warnings/Notes: Dark. 14 years in the future. Probably an excellent idea to read The Confessional first, but not necessary.
Taydrcaagan
A Journal Entry
A.S.12.9.16
Taydrcaagan.
Why do I call you that, in my language, and not the word that you, yourself, would say? Deathseeker. Taydrcaagan. They have the same number of letters, the same pattern to them, so why is one more powerful to me than the other?
Paine told me, once, that she wanted to use my word for you because it made the threat seem less immediate. It was more foreign, and therefore concerned her less. The thing is that it didn’t concern her less - why use a foreign word when you have a perfectly good one of your own? Paine loved you, and she still does. Why would she want to cover up your nature with unspecific terms?
Baralai could not even stand to name it, in any language. To name something is a way of establishing dominion over it - what does it say that I must establish my dominance over your concept? What does it say that Baralai will not name it?
It’s not as if Taydrcaagan is even an Al Bhed concept. Why caag taydr when it can come so easily at the hands of just about any other human being on this world? Why look for it when Sin may be breathing down your neck? I know nothing of seeking death, my friend; I know the feeling of death seeking me.
Not my injury - losing my eye was nothing compared to you losing half of your body. The blowback from the engine that took my eye did not even come close to taking my life. I didn’t have to be rebuilt. But do you understand, my friend, even after all these years of knowing me, what it’s like to be sought by death?
Spirans - Yevonites - they have their Farplane. They have their afterlife, their religion. The Al Bhed have nothing of the sort. Our religion is not one of gods and old tales, but of gears and oils and the unbreakable logic of interconnecting parts. We know the place of the rod in the mechanical system; similarly, we know our place in the system of Spira. We are here simply for the Yevonites to have someone to hate. They do not hate the Ronso, they do not hate the Guado, only us. Even now, years after the defeat of Sin and Yu Yevon himself, years after the hatred of the Al Bhed was supposedly abolished, they still have that look in their eyes when they look at us.
The Yevonites took our home, they took our livelihood, they banished us from every place we could have called our own. We were exiled to the most dangerous place in Spira - an island, so vulnerable to the workings of Sin - for hundreds of years. So if the Yevonites couldn’t kill us with their own hands, at least the monster of their own creation could kill us.
Do you understand, my friend, just what it’s like to have death seeking you? You look for her, the lady that we call Taydr, but she has something else on her mind. She has always been looking for us - for me.
And now, all these years later, I understand why it is that Shuyin chose you and Baralai and never me. Do you know how that tormented me, knowing that you were chosen and not me, that I couldn’t take it onto myself to protect you? I felt like a coward - like I was the weakling of the party that the spirit couldn’t be bothered with. Why do you think I fought so hard to get you back? Yes, friendship and all that warm and fuzzy cred, but I had to prove that I wasn’t weak, and that the spirit was wrong for not choosing me.
My friend, my Taydrcaagan friend, first Shuyin chose you because of that very trait. He was death, in a way, and you were seeking him. And once he grew strong enough, he chose Baralai because he was open and vulnerable to death. As much as he’s been through, Baralai has never sought death nor has he been sought by it.
I was left out because, perhaps simply by virtue of surviving this long without being killed, I am immune to death. I know what you’re going to say - I’m foolish to parade about my own immortality. I don’t mean that my body can’t wither away, that I can’t be a victim of a bullet to the heart… there’s something else. Death - Taydr, your friend - is long in my history. She’s been looking over my shoulder since my ill-fated birth, just as she watched my father and mother, and their parents before them, on back through time. She watches us and waits for us. What could Shuyin do to me? After facing Taydr my whole life, and for the lives of the generations before me, he was a drop of water in the pond.
Even though Taydrcaagan may not be an Al Bhed concept, I’ve learned that Taydrcuikrd is. Unlike those who seek death, I am sought by death. Shuyin is a pale imitation of death - even that bullet wound I received at his hand through yours, though it was the worst of the whole party’s, couldn’t kill me. Taydr has already claimed me, and my whole race.
So, Nooj, you wonder how I can understand you? How can I know? All those years ago -- fourteen of them, exactly -- on the sands of Bikanel after the sand bear incident, how could I look up at you and know?
Because my whole life I have been running from the very thing you’re running toward. You and I are the same, simply running in different directions.
For you, I can use the word closest to me - Taydrcaagan - to establish my dominion over your identity. I am closest to it, though you may never realize this little fact. For Paine, though she uses the same word, it is foreign to her -- she must put distance between herself and the concept. She has never been sought by death, and she has never gone seeking it either. And Baralai, who can scarcely name the phenomenon, chooses not to deal with it at all. I think - and this is just a hunch - that he will never understand that his race was the hand of death herself.
And I will never, ever tell Baralai that Taydr wears his face in my darkest of nightmares.
So when you find her - and I know that someday you will - ask her if she’s still looking for me. And when you hear the answer, maybe you’ll finally understand how that one-eyed Al Bhed boy could look up at you from the sands of Bikanel and understand your very nature.
Fandom: Final Fantasy X-2
Characters: Gippal [narrator], Nooj, Baralai
Rating: PG
Warnings/Notes: Dark. 14 years in the future. Probably an excellent idea to read The Confessional first, but not necessary.
Taydrcaagan
A Journal Entry
A.S.12.9.16
Taydrcaagan.
Why do I call you that, in my language, and not the word that you, yourself, would say? Deathseeker. Taydrcaagan. They have the same number of letters, the same pattern to them, so why is one more powerful to me than the other?
Paine told me, once, that she wanted to use my word for you because it made the threat seem less immediate. It was more foreign, and therefore concerned her less. The thing is that it didn’t concern her less - why use a foreign word when you have a perfectly good one of your own? Paine loved you, and she still does. Why would she want to cover up your nature with unspecific terms?
Baralai could not even stand to name it, in any language. To name something is a way of establishing dominion over it - what does it say that I must establish my dominance over your concept? What does it say that Baralai will not name it?
It’s not as if Taydrcaagan is even an Al Bhed concept. Why caag taydr when it can come so easily at the hands of just about any other human being on this world? Why look for it when Sin may be breathing down your neck? I know nothing of seeking death, my friend; I know the feeling of death seeking me.
Not my injury - losing my eye was nothing compared to you losing half of your body. The blowback from the engine that took my eye did not even come close to taking my life. I didn’t have to be rebuilt. But do you understand, my friend, even after all these years of knowing me, what it’s like to be sought by death?
Spirans - Yevonites - they have their Farplane. They have their afterlife, their religion. The Al Bhed have nothing of the sort. Our religion is not one of gods and old tales, but of gears and oils and the unbreakable logic of interconnecting parts. We know the place of the rod in the mechanical system; similarly, we know our place in the system of Spira. We are here simply for the Yevonites to have someone to hate. They do not hate the Ronso, they do not hate the Guado, only us. Even now, years after the defeat of Sin and Yu Yevon himself, years after the hatred of the Al Bhed was supposedly abolished, they still have that look in their eyes when they look at us.
The Yevonites took our home, they took our livelihood, they banished us from every place we could have called our own. We were exiled to the most dangerous place in Spira - an island, so vulnerable to the workings of Sin - for hundreds of years. So if the Yevonites couldn’t kill us with their own hands, at least the monster of their own creation could kill us.
Do you understand, my friend, just what it’s like to have death seeking you? You look for her, the lady that we call Taydr, but she has something else on her mind. She has always been looking for us - for me.
And now, all these years later, I understand why it is that Shuyin chose you and Baralai and never me. Do you know how that tormented me, knowing that you were chosen and not me, that I couldn’t take it onto myself to protect you? I felt like a coward - like I was the weakling of the party that the spirit couldn’t be bothered with. Why do you think I fought so hard to get you back? Yes, friendship and all that warm and fuzzy cred, but I had to prove that I wasn’t weak, and that the spirit was wrong for not choosing me.
My friend, my Taydrcaagan friend, first Shuyin chose you because of that very trait. He was death, in a way, and you were seeking him. And once he grew strong enough, he chose Baralai because he was open and vulnerable to death. As much as he’s been through, Baralai has never sought death nor has he been sought by it.
I was left out because, perhaps simply by virtue of surviving this long without being killed, I am immune to death. I know what you’re going to say - I’m foolish to parade about my own immortality. I don’t mean that my body can’t wither away, that I can’t be a victim of a bullet to the heart… there’s something else. Death - Taydr, your friend - is long in my history. She’s been looking over my shoulder since my ill-fated birth, just as she watched my father and mother, and their parents before them, on back through time. She watches us and waits for us. What could Shuyin do to me? After facing Taydr my whole life, and for the lives of the generations before me, he was a drop of water in the pond.
Even though Taydrcaagan may not be an Al Bhed concept, I’ve learned that Taydrcuikrd is. Unlike those who seek death, I am sought by death. Shuyin is a pale imitation of death - even that bullet wound I received at his hand through yours, though it was the worst of the whole party’s, couldn’t kill me. Taydr has already claimed me, and my whole race.
So, Nooj, you wonder how I can understand you? How can I know? All those years ago -- fourteen of them, exactly -- on the sands of Bikanel after the sand bear incident, how could I look up at you and know?
Because my whole life I have been running from the very thing you’re running toward. You and I are the same, simply running in different directions.
For you, I can use the word closest to me - Taydrcaagan - to establish my dominion over your identity. I am closest to it, though you may never realize this little fact. For Paine, though she uses the same word, it is foreign to her -- she must put distance between herself and the concept. She has never been sought by death, and she has never gone seeking it either. And Baralai, who can scarcely name the phenomenon, chooses not to deal with it at all. I think - and this is just a hunch - that he will never understand that his race was the hand of death herself.
And I will never, ever tell Baralai that Taydr wears his face in my darkest of nightmares.
So when you find her - and I know that someday you will - ask her if she’s still looking for me. And when you hear the answer, maybe you’ll finally understand how that one-eyed Al Bhed boy could look up at you from the sands of Bikanel and understand your very nature.