"The dead are not easily disturbed, and do not react when people communicate with them. We can see them and talk to them, but they do not respond, for their place is not amongst the living anymore."

"– That sounds, um." He pauses and looks at Kaede. "Somewhat limited in how comforting it might be."

"I am very much not in this business for comfort, no."

And they finally reach the top of the stairs.

Theo looks around at the temple-or-whatever, sticking near the other people.

It is a temple-or-whatever! It's very old and very pretty and there are people milling about and they—

—well, they're not expecting an angel, they kinda stare.

"So, er, are you, like, stuck here forever or something? Do you just go away whenever you want to?"

"If you die or if you will me away for a minute." Pause. "I would currently not like to be willed away, thanks, so would appreciate it if you wouldn't."

Hello people who are not expecting an angel. If it would help he can make his wings black to cut down on the blazing whiteness, and at least he doesn't have a halo.

.........no that does not help at all the blazing whiteness is not the problem here. They also don't notice the lack of a halo, not knowing one would be called for according to some other culture somewhere.

"Why not? I mean, not that I wouldn't love to use your powers against Sin, and Makers, even Movers, it'd be such a huge edge- but if you just explained how to summon people with appropriate bindings..."

"… Yeah, but I prefer personally not to be under 'appropriate bindings' because they can sometimes be unnecessarily limiting, such as the 'do not change people without their consent thing' – if you start bleeding out, I'd assume I have consent, but I might actually need it verbalized to do anything. Plus, like, you've somehow never summoned someone before."

Well, it's not his fault that they don't have halos in their culture. He doesn't know if they have a thing against white wings or something.

"...what does you personally not being under appropriate bindings have to do with anything?"

People have not stopped reacting to his presence with confusion when he changed the colours—in fact, if anything they're more confused—so no they probably do not have a thing against white wings in particular.

"Um, that I don't see why you would dismiss and resummon me when you could just, you know, keep me here?"

"I didn't say I'd dismiss you or resummon you, I want an army of Makers and Movers and Changers to take Sin down. And, separately, I'm wondering why you don't want to be dismissed—you haven't asked anything in exchange for anything and you implied people typically do, and also implied Changers can be pretty terrible which could just be you trying to buy our trust by implying you're not, personally, pretty terrible."

Tidus furrows his eyebrows, trying to follow that.

"… So you, what, think I'm a pretty terrible Changer who has explained that Changers can be pretty terrible to try to make you not think that I'm pretty terrible? And no, I haven't asked for anything in exchange because usually that happens before I get out of the circle and I don't actually yet know what you have, and also I don't want to be dismissed because I'm curious about this place?"

"I don't necessarily think that, I just think that it's possible and your powers make me nervous but most people are not in fact terrible and you'd need to be really, really terrible to be worse than Sin. And even if you, personally, are not worse than Sin, I'd still like to get at least one Maker and one Mover."

"I'm not against that," he says. "I don't know how to do a gag, though, but I think that's mostly so people don't have to bother hearing the annoying suggestions, instead of Makers actually being particularly persuasive or dangerous like that." He looks around. "Do we need to do something about these people and the fact I'm, you know, unexpected?"

"I'm a summoner, people expect me to do unexpected things," she waves her hand vaguely. "It will be weird if I start drawing stuff on the floor, though, so maybe not here..."

At this point, a group of people walks out from the inner sanctum.

"You here to pray for victory, too?" asks Wakka.

"Us? Pray?" mocks the one in front. "Who needs to pray? The Luca Goers always win!"

Theo waits patiently for the interaction to complete, because he thinks he's probably lacking too much context to understand much of it.

Except for it apparently being, probably, some sorts of sports thing. That sounds like a sports thing.

"Oh, yeah? Then why are you here?" Wakka asks.

One of the other guys answers: "We've been praying for some competition this year!"

"So, what's your goal this time?" asks main guy. "You gonna 'do your best' again? Ha! It's too bad your best isn't good enough! Why even bother showing up?"

(Kaede rolls her eyes.)

Theo politely refrains. He is, instead, after looking them over a bit, totally ignoring them and looking around the temple.

"Well, this time, we play to win!"

"Oooh! Play away! Just remember even kids can play, boys," says main guy—

—he pauses to finally notice Theo and blink in surprise—

—then shakes his head and walks off with his teammates. 

(The temple has statues and fire inside spheres that somehow still burns and stone pillars and people and is very pretty.)

Pretty temple. Theo prefers other styles of architecture, though.

He doesn't respond to the confusion of 'main guy'.

Kaede looks like she's biting her tongue on some choice remarks about this interaction.

"We should go."