Tranquil Sorrows :: Open

[Alastor Guado]

It was a taboo amongst the Guado people to enter the Farplane at night. Despite this, Alastor passed a handful of the rebellious types. All races had a representative here, each for their own reasons. Some were on their knees, balling away as images of their deprived flickered before them. Some were here to simply bless their beloved. And some, that disgusting pair of Humans, found the particular area and Pyreflies and night sky romantic, and did decide to take advantage of the situation.

Humans. Of course they would insult everyone here with their uncontrollable desires to grow closer to one another. Coming all the way here for their own selfish desires. If Alastor wasn't undercover, he would have made them acknowledge their sin and disgrace.

Instead, Alastor pushed forward and ignored the bile in his throat that had grown from those Monkeys meters behind. Whenever he was in the area, the Farplane was the only place Alastor would visit. And for only one reason.

Grand Maester Seymour.

His hero. His idol.

This was the only place he could connect. To remember how the world once was and have should have remained.

But they killed him. Those Humans, that Ronso, and that Al-Bhed. Absolutely vile creatures.

A devilish shadow stalked Alastor's heels. His lance was in-hand, but held rather nonchalantly. This place was a place of peace, after all. Here, Alastor could walk without expecting a fight or attempt to capture him, but there of course is always an exception. It could only be expected that eventually his returns to the Farplane would be noted and would get him in some trouble, but until then...

Until then, Alastor found a tree of various hues that were not given justice by the night darkness. And it was here that he wrapped his cape around himself and sat. A somewhat typical place for him to rest. It was an area in the Farplane that was deep enough that he didn't get lost, but also didn't have to worry about random people.

After a few moments, the Pyreflies had come to give this lonely man some company. They spiraled together and eventually morphed into a new form. A blue-robed Guado now stood before Alastor. This projection of Alastor's memory of his hero would flicker in and out, because his memory of the Grand Maester was limited. They had never met, but Alastor had been to a speech or two.

And so the ghastly projection said with a ebbing voice, "I am Seymour Guado. I am honored to receive the title of maester. In life, my father Jyscal worked to foster friendship between man and Guado. I vow to carry on his legacy, and to fulfill my duties as maester to the best of my abilities."

[Sol Royale]

Maybe he did have to worry about random people.

Maybe he had to worry about the randomest of people, so deep into the Farplane.

In the tree under which Alastor sat, resting against the trunk while sprawled out strategically across a few of the tree’s thicker branches, sat perhaps one of the most random people in Spira, whose mood was renowned to reflect absolutely nothing and whose mindset could be anywhere, anytime, anything. In that tree, currently lounging in Beta form and feeling the cool night air glance against his exposed mid-drift, sat Sol.

Tonight his mindset was much more relaxed than normal. He watched, from his high vantage point, the various peoples as they went about their various businesses on the Farplane. He was intrigued by the pyreflies and how they become the shapes of people. Often he considered lingering on the ground long enough to try it himself, yet the thought scared him. What if the pyreflies did not conjure up his loved ones, but the likeliness of his father, or mother. He wouldn’t be able to contain himself. Sol sighed and watched as people wept, how they reminisced in memories of those long lost. How he longed for those feelings.

Then, of course, he looked down. The man below him was lost in the image of someone very familiar to the minds of most of those people alive during Sin’s time. Particularly the hair. It was unmistakable. Only one person had hair the likes of this man, and it intrigued Sol why the Guado sitting at the base of the tree was enjoying the presence of Maester Seymour. It was curious, to say the least.

With almost unearthly stealth, that granted by his Beta form, Sol stood in the tree with ease. With a hope and a skip he leapt off the branch he was standing on and fell straight down. His feet hit the ground and he bent at the knees to absorb the fall. He landed just behind the conjured form of Seymour, rising and examining the swirling pyreflies with curious red eyes. His paced around the conjuration, examining the detail carefully until he was on the other side, toward the man.

“Curious it is to see someone wishing to see the likeliness of Seymour in this day and age, after the man, sometimes called a monster, sometimes called a hero, left his mark so clearly upon the world. Intriguing that one would be so involved in the image of Seymour yet not have him say much more than a broken recording of one of his speeches. Understandable it is that one would come so far into the Farplanes, as ironic a statement as that is, to be alone with such a image, lest they be judged by their community. So tell me, who is this curious individual, what shall he be called outside of, perhaps, a zealot or heathen, a worshipper, fanatic or even a worldly hopeful?” he asked, turning from the aberration and looking to the caped individual who sat at the base of the tree.

[Alastor Guado]

Alastor's gray eyes were cast upon the earth. The Grand Maester's voice was so calming to Alastor that he was able to get caught up in his own thoughts of grandeur. Alastor's own goals and desires for Spira. His eyelids fell heavier and Seymour's voice got dimmer as he got even deeper and deeper into his own consciousness.

It was there that Seymour stood, alive beside Alastor. Alastor smiled before the crowd that stood diagonal down from his pedestal. The Grand Maester presented Alastor as his successor. Alastor nodded and smiled at Seymour as the blue-haired God spoke of Alastor's accomplishments and what glory Alastor was to bring to Spira and the Guado race. Seymour could barely speak, for the crowd roared so heavily.

That is, before a particular group of shadows broke into the ceremony. Their Al Bhed ship brought cannonfire down upon the innocent soldiers. Darting down from the ship came the shadows themselves. The group charged in, and defeated any soldier that got in their way. What seemed like an instant, the soldiers lay dead. The Grand Maester in all his splendor charged in to defend his people and Alastor.

It was there that Alastor saw a sword plunge through his idol's backside.

The picture dissolved from there, and Alastor shook awake. If he hadn't been immediately reconciled by the voice of Seymour's projection beside him, Alastor surely would have had a much worse reaction to his nightmare.

Expecting to be welcomed by the illusion, Alastor cast his eyes and a smile up, but was met by a strange looking man. You can only assume that his smile didn't last.

The weird man talked like a fool whose mind ran far too rapidly for his lips to carry. Alastor, with a fairly broad view of dialects, had trouble remembering all that was said simply because the method of Sol's speech was lame and rude. Alas, Alastor did manage to get enough of the statement to form a reply.

"Al-" He had formed a reply, yes, but hadn't thought it all out. Sol had simply run the Guado's brain so much up the wall, that this fugitive nearly gave his full name; a lethal mistake.

Dear Yevon, thought he, don't recognize me by that much.

"The Grand Maester was a gift from Yevon. Anyone who believes otherwise shall be damned by Sin," stated Alastor in a somewhat gruff tone.

[Sol Royale]

”Seems to me like few people will get damned by Sin these days, though I imagine there are forces that are able to damn without being around. Yevon, for example, was thought to be gone on to the beyond, wherever that may be, and yet he still damned people. So perhaps there are still people being damned by Sin, though I imagine such a fate is quite frightening and I would be forced to question your motives at wishing such cruelty upon people,” he mused to himself, pacing back and forth in front of the man who mentioned the damning by Sin in the first place.

”Oh, and before I forget, because I sometimes do, my name is Sol. It’s a pleasure to meet you, Al. That’s a short name,” Sol thought for a moment, ”Though I would suspect mine is not much longer, being only three letters. Some people spell it with a ‘u’, but that’s not right. That’s not right at all.” Okay, perhaps he was not thinking so deep as one would originally think from the schpeal, the last few words destroying all semblance of philosophy in the little speech.

He turned back to the figure of Seymour who was still standing behind him, lingering to Alastor’s memories. He watched the figure as it stood there lifelessly for the moment as Alastor was distracted, examining it carefully. He reached his hand out to touch it, but it quickly dispersed the pyreflies and thus the entire image of Grand Maester Seymour. Sol frowned, disappointed that it had stopped, ended. He looked at where the aberration had been a moment ago for a bit longer before turning back to Alastor, or Al, as he will now be referred to by Sol.

”And you might want to be careful on what you say about Yevon and Sin these days. People are still recovering, still affected by those names. From what I hear there’re people who don’t like Yevon or Sin, but then I also hear that there are dragons on the Thunder Plain or apple trees growing at the bottom of the ocean. You can hear everything these days,” Sol said with a shrug. ”Honestly, if you want to believe there’s an apple tree on the bottom of the ocean go ahead; I don’t think anybody would be able to prove you wrong in a typical lifetime,” he finished the thought before raising his hands to clasp his fingers behind his head in a relaxed posture.

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[Alastor Guado]

Sol, he recited in his mind. He had never come across such a name, and it rang a dull and lackluster chord within him; much like the owner of the name himself.

Alastor shifted uncomfortably from where he sat as the image of Seymour thinned in the air from Sol's touch. In a flash, the nightmare returned to him, and the shadow now stood where Sol was, running the Grand Maester through with a wicked blade. But Alastor shook his head to the left once, and reality was reaffirmed.

It was a curious thing, this man. He was able to speak in such a flip-flop fashion that just when Alastor was ready to lop off his head clean for heresy, Sol would flop back with indisputable facts that were fairly neutral. If this was simply to cover his own butt from the judgement---physical, social, or mental---that Alastor would give, it was undecided at that point. And if it was, surely Sol hadn't yet matured into a man.

"It does not matter what the masses want or believe," began Alastor, resting his head against the tree behind him, "because they are ignorant. Recover, you say? There is nothing to recover from. The Grand Maester wanted to save Spira. And Sin was our divine punishment for past misdeeds. I do not know if it was mercy that Sin was allowed to be defeated or heresy against Yevon, but it will not last, for the world is returning to its disgusting ways."

[Sol Royale]

”The world is not disgusting, just the little bits of grim that cover it. The world itself is quite a wonderful thing if you think about it, all the wonders that work so wonderfully together. How trees grow, something coming from nothing, how humans, simply biological organisms, maintain feelings and emotions. There is such a detachment from the physical self that one is always forced to believe that there is something else beyond, but such is a scary thought, for if there is a spiritual who is to say there aren’t multiple spiritual beings. Perhaps each individual emotion is a separate entity under one name, controlling the so called feelings of the physical being? Or perhaps we’re all actually puppies who suffer incredible deformation?”

He casually paced back and forth on his feet, his red eyes darting about in the night. He kept his hands clasped behind his head, leaning back into them as if leaning against a pillow whilst standing. He was on a tangent now, and there were few forces in the world that could stop a stream of thought in Sol’s mind, lest he is given some sort of distraction.

”Now, as for Sin being divine judgment, why exactly did we need punishment? Because of our uses of Machina in the past? Why should we be punished? As we can see from Sin’s existence in the past it didn’t exactly stop us from using Machina, such a force in itself being used in foolhardy theories to stop Sin. If the divine, if those beyond that control fate, that judge the world, see something we have done as not fit, why not encourage our advancement in another direction instead of giving us an excuse to go against their will even further?” he stopped and sneezed.

”But tell me, Al, as you seem to feel strongly on such, why do you? But then I might ask anyone. Why does anyone feel strongly toward a particular system of beliefs? Particularly when it comes to such fanaticism that one would give their life to such beliefs, even if it’s an unjust cause. Religion leads to war and that war leads to further religion, creating a loop of sorts that accomplishes nothing, absolutely nothing, except giving those who know how to handle themselves a way to make their name or their fortune. It’s all rather frivolous and pointless, isn’t it?” He turned back toward Alastor, finished his rant so far and waiting to hear the man’s opinion on the matter.

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[Alastor Guado]

Alastor's eyes fixed upon the man, and watched him pace back and forth. The mass of speech carried Alastor's attention for a little bit, but before long, he gave up and his eyes were cast upon the earth at his feet once again. Although he continued to listen, it was very passive and he only caught every other word.

This man, Sol, was certainly...different. Yevon had graced cursed him with a mouth that could run on and on. Very much unlike Alastor, who only spat out a short sentence or two at a time.

Why was this Sol so interested in him anyway? Simply because he missed Seymour? Was Alastor really the only one who missed the Grand Maester's graces? It was baffling.

There was a short pause when Sol stopped to ask Alastor his opinion, because Alastor hadn't quite realized he had stopped talking. Having not really listened, Alastor simply replied, "You are a wandering and lonely demon sent to lead me astray, aren't you?" His tone was lightly sarcastic, but his face wouldn't have given any clue to that. A single eyebrow rose up at Sol.

[Sol Royale]

There was something about the man’s words that triggered a bit of mischief in the elusive mind of Sol. He carefully considered himself for a moment, stopping his pacing in front of the man. ”A wandering demon, what an odd thing to label me,” he mused. His eyes were red and his clothing black, but then that didn’t mean he was a demon, did it? Sol paused, drawing his two short sawblades, the weapons for Beta form. He looked down at them for a moment before looking up at Al and grinning widely.

There was a flash of light and suddenly Sol had a much more demonic appearance, shifting into his Gamma form. His two sawblades and shifted together to match the transformation, becoming a wicked scythe. To add to the image, Sol activated Wings of Epsilon which caused large bat-like wings to sprout from his back. Overall, yeah, he carried the image many would relate to a demon, the only more intimidating form he had would probably be Omega, and that wasn’t exactly something he wanted to unleash on the Farplanes, nor had the choice to unleash.

”I suppose one could call you correct, depending on your definition of demon. I come from no layer of Hell nor are my origins supernatural, they are quite normal. However there is a side to me few see and those who do see fail to live to elaborate any further. There’s a side to me that terrifies even me, let alone those who know of it, a side which came to me from nowhere. Perhaps that is a demon, perhaps I am possessed, though if that were the case then it’d be arguable that I was also possessed by an angel,” Sol said with a mix of thoughtful expression and a deep growl to accompany the image.

”But I am human, for the most part; I am a Man to say the least, and I is Man not a demon, a plague upon the world we live in. Does Man not destroy the nature around them, creating room for their own creations. Perhaps I am a demon in that I am Man, though I have yet to clear out a forest to make room for a road or what have you. Yet in my being a Man perhaps it is inevitable that I will become destructive to the world around me. But that does not answer you, it merely convolutes your statement. I am and I am not a demon, and whether or not I am here to lead to astray depends on where you were going in the first place,” Sol finished, shrugging and leaning against the scythe.

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