It is indeed a bulge in the water, but not a wave. Rather, a... creature. Of some sort.

It's difficult to see, at first, the bulge in the water grows and grows and defies gravity. When the water finally breaks and slides down the sides of the creature, eighty percent of it is still submerged, which still leaves enough of it exposed for it to be a sizeable hill. It's surrounded by something like an energy field, faintly iridescent but transparent, so its features are not easily seen, especially from a distance. What it does seem to be, for sure, though, is heading towards the fishing village at an alarming speed.

"Shit!"

"What is it?" Oni-Goroshi asks. "Are we under attack?"

"No - the portal device did something, we're near a village and there's some giant monster coming for it -"

A sharpening metal sound, her equivalent of an intake of breath. "What are you waiting for, then? Move!"

Edmund - looks down, semi-voluntarily. It's a long way down. How much does he trust his shielding?

...enough that he'll do this. He jumps.

It's a long enough fall for him to regret his life choices before slamming into the rocks. There's a bright flash of light and a crashing sound as his shields collapse, and a snap as his leg breaks. He hisses and drags himself back to his feet as one of his flasks drains to set and knit the bone, then starts running for the village.

The monster is faster. It is faster by an unreasonable amount. Nothing that big should be that fast.

And then it suddenly stops, and all of the water it's been moving doesn't stop, and comes crashing down the village in multiple waves. Which would be bad enough, as each wave is as tall as the tallest wooden building in the village, except as that happens some sort of, of gravity effect starts pulling the buildings apart, and towards the monster. One by one the village's houses and huts and walkways and trees get uprooted and torn to pieces in the air, a cloud of them quickly forming around the monster. And—and—

—those are definitely people. The people themselves are not pulled apart, merely pulled towards the monster, hit by debris that are being thrown every which way, crushed between pieces of their former homes, impaled by enormous branches that have been ripped off trees. A whirlwind of destruction swirls around and above the monster, and as the waves settle, the entire coastal part of the village and a fair way inland have been razed to the ground.

He keeps running.

It's not to save the people, anymore, they're gone, but - if he can kill that thing, he can save the people it'd kill next. The lives it'll destroy - the tiny human worlds it'll ruin - he can save them.

(Unless it's like the Beast. Unless, again, he takes matters into his own hands and destroys the world.)

The backwash crashes into him, knee-deep and filled with debris. It sweeps his legs out from under him and sucks him under. He's dashed against the rocks, over and over, until his shielding collapses and his flasks drain to nothing and, finally, his head smacks into a rock and his vision goes dark.

Edmund wakes up. The beast is nowhere to be seen, at least from his vantage point where he's been placed sitting on the ground leaning against one of the buildings that got hit but not too badly.

Kneeling in front of him is a boy, can't be older than twenty, wearing a fairly elaborate and ceremonial-looking outfit. His arms are covered from the biceps down by an intricate spiralling armwrap that ends in half gloves encrusted with small gems, and his legs and feet are adorned by sandals in a similar style. He's wearing a white and dark blue skirt that goes almost all the way to his knees, and his torso is bare except for a series of silver necklaces that go all the way down to the middle of his chest. He also seems to be wearing a cloth harness of some sort which probably has clasps on the back where one would attach the long staff he's holding with one hand.

He looks very surprised to see Edmund actually come to, and a gesture with his free hand and his staff causes a soft light to shine from within Edmund's chest which does wonders to clear his head and heal his wounds even further.

The boy looks over his shoulder to call something to someone else in a completely foreign language, but from the tone of his voice it's probably something like "He's actually alive!"

Edmund... stays exactly where he is, actually, he's not sure if he's completely healed and under the circumstances he'd rather not jostle his brain any more than it already has been.

(He makes a strange corpse, wearing an embroidered tunic set with six thumbnail-sized gemstones in a spiral pattern, a diadem with four of similar size, boots with two apiece, and a pair of long gloves again with two apiece. Apart from the strange insets, they're very tasteful and practical.)

"I don't suppose you speak Azmeri?" he asks aloud.

"They haven't shown any sign of it," his sword says, small flames flickering to life along her blade. "Welcome back to the waking world, by the way."

"Yes, thank you, I feel very blessed."

The boy's eyes immediately snap to the sword when the flames flicker to life and it speaks. He blinks slowly then looks up at Edmund again and tries saying something else, a question of some kind, in a different language—or probably a different language, it has a very similar cadence to the first thing he said but the syllables sound much harsher and the prosody is more clipped. Probably asking a similar question to Edmund's in his other language.

"Nope," he sighs. "Goddess, do you speak whatever this is? Or - have some kind of power to translate?"

"Why in the world would I be able to do that? I'm a sword. I stab things."

"I don't know, you're a goddess too, aren't you?"

He sighs again, and hooks a thumb toward his chest. "Edmund." Points at the strange boy, makes a curious face.

"Zei," he says, blinking slowly. Then he... points at the sword? The sword is a person too?

Oh. Right. "Oni-Goroshi," he says, patting her hilt.

"Charmed," she drawls.

He replies with something that sounds like a similar sort of greeting, then gets up. Another gesture with his free hand and his staff makes some more light glow from within Edmund without that altering anything in his perception of the world, and Zei must have somehow noticed this, too, because he attaches his staff to his back and offers Edmund a hand to pull him to his feet.

A woman, at least mid twenties but the way she carries herself says maybe more, walks over to them from where she'd been talking to a group of people. Or standing around a group of people, she wasn't talking much. Her outfit is similarly outlandish, if less suited for a beach village: long black dress with fluffy sleeves and edges, its corset probably responsible for keeping it up despite how gravity says her breasts should be fighting free of it any minute now, and its skirt decorated with a truly unreasonable number of belts. Her hair is done up in a bun held by a long wooden spike, and she also has numerous necklaces down her chest, although fewer than Zei does.

She asks Zei something, in the first language the boy used, looking at Edmund...

...to which Zei only shrugs and gives a reply that's probably something like "I have no idea".

Then he points at her, looking at Edmund, and says, "Lulu," then, "Edmund" and "Oni-Goroshi" to introduce the other two. He does a great job at almost pronouncing Edmund's name right, but Oni-Goroshi he gets perfectly.

"...Goddess, I'm never sure how well your perception of the world lines up with mine -" Edmund starts, getting to his feet.

"Yes, that woman is wearing a skirt made entirely out of belts," Oni-Goroshi flickers, mildly amused. "Don't sour her impression of you by laughing. Stare at her tits instead, if you must."

"I have no intention of doing either of those things!" Edmund protests. He bows, instead. 

The woman looks—amused? Somewhat amused. Maybe she inferred a thing or two about what they were saying. Regardless, she returns the bow, and still gravity does not take hold of her impossible dress.

Zei claps his hands together and says something. Almost cheerful, it sounds, if it weren't for the slight strain to the corner of his eyes and lips. From the way he looks over his shoulder again at—most of the wreckage, and the occasionally visible corpse floating on the water in the process of being collected and placed into a coffin by the locals—one could surmise what he said was "I am not dealing with this right now."

Or maybe he did say something like that and the way Edmund feels weirdly sure of it is not limited to body language and inferences.

Regardless, he looks at Edmund and—how do you even include a sword in your conversational circle? who knows—Oni-Goroshi and says something that includes Lulu's name to them before he saunters off to go help with the dead.

Lulu looks at the boy and the sword and tilts her head in the direction of a makeshift tent that has been erected at the beach—one of many, ten-minute jobs made out of wreckage housing the surviving wounded and the shocked and the actual survivors who have come to help—before leading the way there without waiting for him.

Edmund follows along, trying not to look at the carnage. Instead, he will think about the odd feeling of comprehension that he got from Zei's sentence! "Maybe it's some kind of translation effect," he says aloud. "In which case the first word these charming people get of our language might well be tits."

"I apologize for nothing."

The tent Lulu leads them to has a bundle of travel bags that look somewhat out of place, in a corner there. She reaches inside one of them and when she turns back around she has a thick leather-bound book in her hands. She offers it to Edmund and says something with Zei's name in it that feels ineffably like she's relaying a request of some sort.

Yes that feeling is definitely separate from the obvious inference from body language, now that he's paying attention to it.

Edmund takes the book and bows. He'll... open it and take a look?

It's an utterly fascinating book.

There's nothing written on it, it's entirely blank, but it is still somehow extremely engrossing. He can very well spend an hour or two just flipping through the blank pages one by one, if he lets himself. And the way Lulu folds her arms and slightly leans back against a wooden pole, she seems to expect him to do just that.

...well that's... terrifying... but. It is fascinating. And he's fairly sure if this is some kind of trap, Oni-Goroshi can take direct control of him to defend his body. So...

He stares at the pages. Flips through the book, at his own pace.

And by the time he's reached the end of the book the sun is setting. No one has attacked him or anything, and other than a couple of people coming to ask Lulu about him she's been similarly unmolested.

When she notices he's reached the end, she straightens up and asks, "Can you understand me?" And despite the fact that she's speaking the second language Zei spoke to him and that he definitely could not understand it then, she is clear as day now.

"Um. Yes? Which is... admittedly not as strange as the book but still quite strange?"

"Oh, that's fascinating," Oni-Goroshi says in the same language. "-good evening, by the way, I love the dress."

She shakes her head and says, "I don't actually speak Al Bhed," in that same language. Then she switches languages again and says something that probably just means "wait here" before she goes off somewhere. Also maybe something about speaking? The mysterious feeling of understanding is not very clear yet.

He can wait here and - probably "don't say anything," right? That would seem to follow from the headshake. He can wait here and not say anything.

Zei shows up a couple of minutes later, looking like he's spent the past while in fairly strenuous physical labour. "The book lets you understand the next few sentences you say or hear in Al Bhed before the magic fades," he explains immediately, then waits to see if Edmund or Oni-Goroshi have anything surprising to say about that.

"..."

Nod.

Sharp metal noise. "Of course, it'd be far too convenient to - hang on a tic," Oni-Goroshi says, and then Edmund is on fire.

Zei takes a step back and looks a bit too stunned for a second to react before he grabs his staff and takes a ready stance to... do something... in case the fire needs to actually be put out

Edmund is gritting his teeth in obvious discomfort but does not appear to be screaming and dying, even though the flames seem quite hot from where Zei is standing.

"There," she says after about thirty seconds. "I hate magic that's too volatile to do its job - should be stuck in properly now."

He says something in not-Al Bhed because he doesn't want to waste the magic but the mysterious feeling of understanding is definitely along the lines of "Please elaborate", or perhaps just "What?"

"I heartily second that," Edmund says. "You said an hour ago you didn't have any kind of linguistic powers!"

"You of all people should know what arbitrary bullshit magic is," the blade says haughtily. "I have power over swords, flame, and my wielder. I may not be able to use that to do whatever you like, but with a translation spell already affecting you, it was not exactly a test of my abilities to keep it there."

Edmund turns back to Zei. "Women," he says with a vague hand gesture.

Zei tilts his head then shakes it. "So to be clear I can just speak Al Bhed to... both of you... and you'll retain all of it?"

"Yes. I've no idea how I'd twist it to apply to a more convenient language, like the one your lady-friend speaks, because magic where we're from doesn't reference concepts as vague and arbitrary as language in the first place. But he'll understand it, and as he's my wielder I will too."

"Trust me if I had the time to do science to magic I would. But the last thing anyone here has is time, so—walk with me? I need to send the souls of the departed onwards to their final destinations."

And then he says something in the other language that is... a very similar length? And content? He may in fact have just repeated himself in the other language actually.

Also, there's that strain around his eyes and lips again.

Edmund nods and walks along.

"You're - some kind of priest, then?"

"Some kind. I'll explain when I'm done with—with everything, here. Sorry about the rush." Then he repeats it in the other language.

Outside, the remaining villagers are huddled together in a crowd by the water. They put tall torches up along the sand, so the whole beach is lit by fire. When they notice Zei coming back over, they part for him, and he makes his way all the way to the water.

Lulu is there, too, and when she catches Edmund's eye she motions him over.

(And while most people here are human, one person standing next to Lulu isn't—he seems to instead be a tall humanoid creature with a face resembling a lion's as well as long claws on his fingers and digitigrade feet, plus what looks to be a broken horn sticking out of his forehead.)

Edmund is... not unsurprised by this, but Lulu's nonreaction is reassuring enough that he files in next to her.

No one really remarks upon him—or even really notices him. They're all watching Zei, who's standing at the edge of the water. He's taken his sandals off at some point, and is breathing slowly with his staff in hand while he watches the soft waves and waits for something.

The tall torches have been also set into the soft wet sand and a ways into the water, a short corridor of light leading to where the dead are: numerous boats and underwater coffins can be seen, the water mysteriously clear despite the mess the attack should have made of it. Clearly Zei is meant to walk to them and do—something.

And he does. He takes one step, then another, but he's walking on the surface of the water rather than on the sand. This becomes clearer and clearer the farther down he goes, until he's past the torches and just standing there amidst the boats and coffins.

And then there's drums. Except—no one is playing them. And the voices start singing—except it's no one in the crowd. The song comes from all around them, but mostly from the direction of the water, where Zei slowly starts to sway in time with it. As the music picks up, so do his movements, and he's effectively dancing with his staff in hand, swirling in place as the water stirs beneath his feet.

And finally, the dead. Wisps of blue and white light, ethereal flame emerging from within the boats and coffins, from within the corpses. They grow in number the longer Zei does this, and start surrounding him before spreading outwards and upwards, zigzagging between the people still alive, disappearing off into the sunset sky.

And the people cry. They finally let themselves mourn, finally stop holding their breaths now that the rites are underway, now that they can see that at the very least the creature has not robbed their loved ones of peace. It happens almost at the same time for everyone, all of the villagers breaking down in tears or falling to their knees or wailing in their despair.

Zei just keeps dancing, his face a mask of concentration, and the dead are Sent.

Edmund... doesn't let himself cry with them. He's tempted. But this isn't his grief. He has no right to mourn with these people that he wasn't able to save their family and friends.

Instead he watches the wisps rise. I guess their priests do more than ours, he finds himself thinking.

It takes a bit less than half an hour, all told, for all of the souls to depart. The sun has set, by then, and most of the mourners have cried their grief out, too. The eerie hymn fades with the last wisps to disappear into the heavens, and then it's just Zei, standing still, alone on the water.

He runs a hand against his face, after a minute, then walks back to shore, slowly sinking down into the water as he does. His toes are firmly on the sand by the time the small party of non-villagers he seems to be with meets with him. The villagers have started dispersing by then, some to other parts of the beach to pay some private respects to the dead, but most walking back to the inland parts of the village that didn't get hit by the attack.

Lulu takes him into her arms and hugs him, quickly but tenderly, running a hand through his hair for a second before letting go. "You did a good job," she says, and Edmund can even understand a word or two of that sentence now, as well as the general gist of it.

"Yeah," he says, voice hoarse from the crying he'd clearly been having there. He clears his throat and pulls away to look at Edmund. "Let me introduce them," he says in Al Bhed again. "This is Kimahri," lion dude, "and this is Wakka," dude with a hairdo.

(Hairdo dude looks very uncomfortable with the language switch for some reason but doesn't actually say anything.)

"They're my guardians," Zei continues, "which you won't know about because you're from much farther away than I thought someone could be before."

"If it helps, we're almost as confused. We've been exploring alternate realities for some time, and this is the first we've come across where magic itself was different."

"...sorry about the timing," Edmund says quietly. "We actually landed... a bit before... all that. What was that thing? The one that did this."

Zei reaches down nearby for his sandals, which he'd left on the sand by the water before the ritual, and says, "Mind sharing a room with me? It'll be easier to explain if I don't have to worry about other people maybe running into me speaking Al Bhed, which I'll also have to explain about."

Wakka makes more of a face when Zei repeats that in the other language—Edmund is definitely starting to be able to pick up on a word or two, there—and says something to Lulu that sounds like worry about... evil people? Or something?

To which Lulu says something that sounds like it's trying to be reassuring but which comes across as kind of inpatient and a bit snappish. Zei's name is in there too.

"I don't mind sharing a room," Edmund confirms.

There weren't many people who lived in the destroyed buildings and didn't get got by the attack, but enough that the bigger inn further inland between the cliffs is much fuller than it usually gets. The party stops by the tent where they left their bags (the book used to teach Edmund Al Bhed was apparently Zei's) before getting there, and after a short conversation with the innkeep (who wanted to make sure to give Zei the best room) they get two: one for Zei and Edmund and one for Lulu and Wakka. Kimahri (who hasn't said a word so far) is going to sleep outside.

The inn is three stories tall and their rooms are on the third. The one Zei and Edmund get is indeed reasonably large, with two straw beds, a short cupboard with a decorative plant, and an area sectioned off by a wooden divider with something like a drain on the floor and four greenish-blue glass spheres resting on a shelf.

Zei locks the door behind them and makes a beeline for that sectioned off area, undoing his armwraps and taking off his harness and jewellery as he goes along. "Going to assume you don't have [____] either," he says, using a loanword from the non-Al Bhed language and gesturing at the spheres.

"We don't have [____]." He will not touch the spheres until and unless someone tells him to, how about that.

"These are pretty standard ones for cleaning." He steps out of the last of his clothes, kicking them all to the same corner he left his bag at to deal with later, and grabs one of the spheres. Then he raises it above his head, squeezes the sphere in his hand, and it starts... spewing hot water at him. It stays in the air when he lets go, floating there and serving as a showerhead, and he just stands under the water stark naked for a few seconds, just relaxing.

Edmund doesn't seem to care. He leans against the wall and - doesn't stare, but doesn't look away either.

"Why don't we have virtue gems for that?" he asks Oni-Goroshi idly.

She clangs sarcastically. "Apart from the fact that imbuing virtue gems is an incredibly costly and delicate process, and only someone with more wealth than sense would ever think to use them for any purpose less vital than life and death?"

"Yes, apart from that."

A deep, long-suffering sharpening noise. "Well, some people did make virtue gems for that - the Vaal, the Eternal Empire. Your little theocracy merely never had the chance to reach the requisite heights of decadence before you accidentally brought about the apocalypse."

...apocalypse. Nice. He'll ask later. "Okay so explanations. Tell me what's most mysterious about here? —and actually while you're at it can you kick those clothes over here, each of these lasts about ten minutes but I might as well multitask."

And despite not having soap or anything like that Zei rubs his bare hands against his skin and through his hair, and that does a better job of getting rid of the sweat and salt and sand than regular water would have any right to.

Edmund tosses the clothes over. "I'm pretty clear on how I got here, it was by tampering with forces with which man was not meant to interfere. And you've been very welcoming so far, so I'm not too worried about cultural taboos that will get me summarily executed. I'd love to know a bit more about the fucking giant monster, though."

Zei covers his eyes with a hand and rubs them with a finger and a thumb before letting out a sigh. "Right. Shiin." Another loanword. The mysterious understanding arrives in Edmund's head unbidden, a word that seems to both refer to the giant creature itself and to the concept of—fundamental wrong, as committed by people. He opens his eyes again, grabs his clothes, and starts scrubbing them under the water. "A thousand years ago, people got into a huge war that almost killed everyone. Then Shiin showed up and ended it pretty decisively by razing one of the sides of the war to the ground and very credibly looking like it was about to do the same to the other side. The side that got destroyed was a country named Zanarkand, and the other side is Bevelle. Lady Yunalesca, princess of Zanarkand, somehow managed to survive, and she came to Bevelle and taught people how to fight Shiin. We can now kill it, but only temporarily, at least until all peoples of the world have completely atoned for the sin of hubris and cleansed ourselves of it, after which point killing Shiin will be permanent. Or so she told us.

"I'm named after her husband, Zaon. As proof of concept both of them went and fought Shiin and killed it for the first time, and it was gone for ten years before it reappeared. The second time only happened four hundred years ago, the third two hundred and thirty years ago, the fourth a hundred years ago, and the fifth was my father's ten years ago."

"That's a very distressing pattern but I'm a little bit stuck on the concept of cleansing the peoples of the world of their sins because the last time someone in my world tried that it was a shitshow. Can I just - um."

Edmund gnaws on the knuckles of his right hand for a moment, then drags his palm down his face.

"You've been very polite about not asking me anything about myself but it is at this point that I am going to tell you my life story because it's seeming more and more likely to be relevant."

"By all means."

He has mostly gotten rid of all the grime—the sweat and salt and sand was making him want to claw his skin off, not that he would ever admit that in public, he has an image—and is now using the last few minutes of his magic sphere on his clothes.

"I was born in the city of Theopolis, capital of the Oriathan Empire. Second son of a minor noble. Our every need was tended by slaves, because to be an Oriathan noble without slaves would be like being - a city without buildings - it wouldn't make sense. The church taught that some people, the Karui, were made by God to be slaves and it was a kindness to them to guide them, and show them the way. I... disagreed. From the age of twelve to nineteen, I built up a network of like-minded individuals who smuggled slaves out of the Empire's reach and generally made slavers' lives harder. But my reach exceeded my grasp. I was caught inciting a revolt, and exiled to Wraeclast."

"Wraeclast is... a bad place. Most of its inhabitants are exiles, usually sent away for crimes worse than mine. And it's a place of wild magic. The dead rise to consume the living, the animals are vicious and diseased, the earth itself is barren and impossible to farm. Exile is a death sentence, and I knew it. But I was too stubborn to die. And I found Oni-Goroshi, who, well, inspired me to find a way out. I... more or less cut my way across the continent, cut down anyone in my way, seeking redemption. And along the way I killed... the Beast. It was - well - what I knew was that it was a thing of terrible power and that some utter bastards were going to harness that power and try to conquer the world. So I killed it, instead. And I found a way home, eventually - a portal, raised by a woman of great power from a bygone age."

"When I got there, it was chaos. My revolt had continued in my absence, and gone from escape if you can, kill the slavers to raze Theopolis, kill anyone who tries to stop you. I tried to end the rampage diplomatically, and the Karui leader said they'd leave in peace if I helped them kill the head of the church, who'd committed so many atrocities against them. I... wasn't opposed to this myself, so I did. But with my blade through his chest, he started to glow, and his body was possessed by - Innocence. The god he worshipped, the one I'd thought was just one more lie to keep the masses placated. He said he wanted to wipe the sin from everyone in the world, and he'd start with me."

"I slew Innocence too. I didn't have much choice, he was trying to kill me. Then his brother arrived. Sin. - I'm not unconscious of the homophone or the coincidence in the name's meaning, believe me. He told me that by destroying the Beast, I'd removed the seals holding the old gods back from returning and wreaking havoc on the world. And that, in fact, at this very moment, the Karui god of destruction, Kitava, had incarnated in Theopolis by the rage of the Karui slaves and was rampaging through the city."

"I faced Kitava alone. He..." Edmund swallows. Remembers facing the Destroyer. "He crushed me. Like a bug. And Sin rescued me at the last moment. Told me I needed to go back to Wraeclast, and reclaim the essence of the Beast, whatever I'd left of it."

How am I supposed to do that? Edmund had asked. I'm not - special. I've just got a bloody sword and no idea when to quit.

Sin had smiled grimly. It's not what you have. It's what you don't have anymore. And he'd tapped one shadowy finger to Edmund's chest. Kitava ate your heart. There's a hole in you, boy. And it wants to be filled.

"So I did," Edmund continues. "I went back to Wraeclast, and along the way I... encountered some gods. Old gods, gods that hadn't been worshipped in centuries and were starving for power. I... killed them. Because they were doing terrible things, to the world and the people around them. And... I drank from their essence. I filled the hole in my heart with divine power. And. They stayed dead. Gods aren't supposed to die, not really, but I didn't leave enough of them to come back. I took the essence of the Beast into myself as well. And I went back to Theopolis, and with the help of Sin and Innocence, I destroyed Kitava for good."

"My help also," Oni-Goroshi mutters. "You barely mentioned me once in that entire lengthy, overwrought story. I was there the whole time!"

Pat pat. "Sorry, Goddess. I'll try to work you in next time."

(The shower sphere has run out, by then. But rather than falling down or going dull or anything like that, it dissipated into wisps very similar to the ones from the ritual earlier, if smaller and less bright. The water, too, entirely disappeared when that happened, leaving Zei and his clothes perfectly dry and clean.)

Zei is leaning against a wall, listening to the story with something between incredulity and awe between his eyebrows. When the story is done he's quiet for a couple of seconds, but then he says, "Okay so before I engage with any of that, do you want to take a shower? Just lift, squeeze, and wish," gesturing at the spheres. He grabs his clothes and folds them over an arm, then he walks over to one of the beds, to sit cross-legged there. The room is not so big that this really precludes a conversation.

"Sure, I could wash off."

Edmund strips and starts the process. Hot water raining down on him appears to be an unfamiliar but not unpleasant sensation, and after a little while luxuriating in it he starts scrubbing.

The water almost feels like water, except for how it somehow makes dirt just—come off, like soap but better.

"So, uh... everything you just said sounds like fiction. And, like... one, magic talking swords are fiction, too, no slight intended. And two, assuming everything you said is true, you could be the most important thing that's happened to this planet in the last thousand years. So please bear with me while I try to... wrap my head around everything I've ever known not being quite true."

Edmund shrugs. "I suppose I just don't have enough context about how magic here works to disbelieve your end of things. Language spells aren't something that makes sense, but... people getting into massively destructive wars and apocalypse monsters are pretty familiar."

"Magic is... pyreflies," he says, gesturing at the shower sphere Edmund is using. And more specifically, the top of it, which is emanating tiny marble-sized wisps. "Here, I mean. There's a bunch of theory, I said I've never done science to it but other people have and it's probably not my best suit, really, I'd never be able to actually contribute. I've just read about it as a guilty pleasure." He shrugs with a sheepish grin. "Pyreflies get attached to emotions and people, and we can shape them in turn, into spells or into those spheres. So I think languages have relevant boundaries because people think they do, and that's enough."

"That's... remarkably cute."

"Magic where we're from interacts with belief, but mostly in the sense that belief is a potential source of power. Magic proper is - rigorously defining the effect you want to see, then channeling power into it until it happens. Usually, in the modern day, through the medium of virtue gems." One of the six large gems set into her hilt glows. "I'm set with six linked gems, each of which enhances my wielder's ability to fight with me. His magical energy fuels them. I doubt you could lift me, even if I were inclined to cooperate; I'd drain too much from you just sustaining the gems."

"I guess you could say the pyreflies are also just interacting with beliefs," he says, swaying back and forth on the bed, one hand on each knee, "but pyreflies that aren't being magic just kind of... don't do anything. Look pretty, I guess."

"Hmm. But - when you healed Edmund, what did you do? Just - believe that he should be healed?"

"...yes and no. Spells are discrete, but we make them out of believing in them? Or more like feeling very strongly about them. I made that healing spell out of feeling very strongly about people's health. Years ago, to be clear, not on the spot, it's just a thing I can do now. And the way I use the spell is by invoking that same feeling and then sort of... pushing it out."

"Hm. I suppose if it works, it works."

"It sounds rather nice, actually. No magic unless you really believe in what you're doing... I suppose it still leaves room for atrocities of faith."

Zei grimaces. "Yeah. Also the correspondence is not direct, Lulu can set you on fire and I'm pretty sure it's not because she feels very strongly about setting people on fire. ...pretty sure."

"Well. I suppose if it sounds too good to be true it usually is."

"Not that setting people on fire can't occasionally be reasonable," Oni-Goroshi says primly.

Zei laughs and shakes his head. "Jokes aside, she's offered to teach me black magic before—that's magic of the destructive kind. The way she explains it is more utilitarian: black magic is made to help you survive and help you protect yourself and your loved ones. It's just a tool, and yes it is inherently destructive as a tool but people like us are... going out on the field to fight. It's easy to feel reasonably strongly about how much you would rather melt that ice elemental than let it freeze you to death."

"I wasn't joking. I am literally a goddess of destruction. Sometimes you need to set someone or something on fire."

"No, but I was, I am very sure Lulu does not actually want to set things on fire as a very terminal value. Despite what she'll seem like when you can actually talk to her.

"Which brings us to a bit of a more practical point: the language we're speaking is seen as rather heretical and I can only speak it because my mother was from the country that does. So we should probably figure that out."

"The... language... is heretical. Joy."

"As I said, I can maintain this effect but I can't expand it to a new language, not without understanding a lot more about how this world's magic works."

"The book I have there," he says, gesturing at his bag by the door, "was my mom's. It's used as a teaching aid, you get some choice sentences and if you pick them carefully you can extrapolate a lot. But I have no idea where I'd find one for Spiran, everyone who isn't Al Bhed just is taught Spiran when growing up and there's an agenda.

"So we could try to go at it the old-fashioned way? With some Al Bhed help. It helps that you look at least half Al Bhed yourself so people might be more forgiving of you not knowing Spiran if we spin it right, but maybe you should just not speak..." Pause. "That's, uh, assuming you're following my party at least for a while."

"You seem to be the ones who're doing something about the giant monster, so it seems reasonable."

"—well, yes, kind of, I should tell you more about that. Short story is that the kind of 'priest' I am is the, uh, solution that Lady Yunalesca told people about. We go on a long pilgrimage, visit the whole continent, and if we survive and don't give up by the time we get to the ruins of Zanarkand we can get the weapon that kills Shiin temporarily and us permanently."

He's doing his best to sound... not exactly neutral about that, but having someone he doesn't need to pretend the whole thing isn't bullshit around is kind of refreshing actually.

"...how about I just stab the fucker and eat its soul."

"Please do!"

"...if you can manage to do that at all and then not be possessed by its spirit."

"It hasn't been a problem before. If we want to complete the pilgrimage and find your weapon as a backup I won't object, I suppose?"

Zei purses his lips, open and shuts his mouth a few times, then goes with, "I'm having trouble prioritising, here. Between what I should be telling you and whether I should be trying to teach you Spiran instead or maybe just aiming you at our local giant monster."

(And about now is when Edmund's shower sphere runs out. The magic water evaporates into wisps of magic—pyreflies—at the same time the sphere does.)

Edmund puts on the clothes he was washing, now dry and unwrinkled. "I certainly don't know how to prioritize the information I don't know. But if I go up against Shiin and lose because I didn't know something, then you lose a potentially valuable resource you could've used more sensibly. And... hmm... maybe we should multi-task, here, and have Oni-Goroshi looking at your book to see if she can get a firm enough grasp of how your magic works to manipulate it? And then we don't worry about teaching me the language until and unless she says she can't make head or tails of it."

"—oh, yes, that'd be great if that worked." He hops off the bed, still naked as a jaybird, and walks over to the door to grab the book from there and hand it to—how do you hand a book over to a sword.

Edmund places her gently on top of it.

"Excelsior," she says drily. "Try not to get stabbed without me."

"Yes, yes."

"I can deal with any stabbing that occurs. —I can deal with anything up to freshly-killed so long as the body is mostly intact, for the record."

"...huh. How dead is freshly-killed? I can recover from most things that leave me conscious enough for mental actions..."

"I think I'd give it a ballpark of up to five minutes? Assuming the person hasn't been Sent by then."

"Wow. That's the first thing I've heard that makes me think that's not how magic works. On - like - a real gut level."

Zei sits back down on the bed he's claimed for himself, gripping the edges with his hands to either side of his thighs and resting his weight on them and on his haunches, swaying back and forth in place again.

"Most summoners—that's the kind of thing I am—specialise in healing magic. At least at first. Our guardians are the ones meant to dish out the hurt, most of the time, except for the thing I should explain about us that lets us hurt Shiin."

"Right. The thing you should explain."

"Mmhm. So, the pilgrimage isn't just a, a spiritual journey, although I'm at least fifty percent sure a big part of it is getting us to meet enough people and see enough destruction that we can work up a right outrage about Shiin. But there's the more practical matters of training ourselves up to being able to do what needs to be done, at the end. Magically, that is.

"There's no good way to describe—actually, I'll just show you. We'll need to go outside, though, if I do it here I'm going to destroy this place and that would not be nice."

Edmund will follow.

Zei puts his sandals on and grabs his staff then walks out and down the stairs. He offers the innkeep a small wave then ducks out and leads the way away from the inn in long strides. "I gotta admit I'm excited to show summoning to someone who's never seen it before. But I don't wanna do it too close to the village otherwise people will want to come see and I won't be able to talk to you in Al Bhed."

"It does sound exciting. Summoners where I'm from can do... well, golems, those are human-sized elemental creations, and undead, like zombies or skeletons or wraiths. Nothing that would level an inn."

After a minute or two of walking Zei stops, still in view of the village but somewhat hidden by trees. Then he holds a hand up for Edmund to stop walking and takes a couple more steps away then stops.

"When people die, here," he says, "they don't always go to the Farplane. They can become lost in grief for their own deaths, and jealousy of those who still live. If they are not Sent, and do not make their way to the afterlife themselves, their emotions can consume them, and they become monsters. Fiends is what we call them, and they mindlessly prey on the living and continue on in torment until someone can give them release.

"People have learned how to harness this process, though. There is a ritual, and a willing person can sacrifice themself to bind their soul and their will to this world. Rather than being lost in despair, these people are united in hope. We call the people who have chosen to die this way 'fayth'. Their spirits reside in stone, and they wait for us, for summoners to visit them. And there, we commune with them, join our hearts and voices for a while. And if we are aligned in our desire to protect others and destroy Shiin, we form a bond."

The ground and the air start glowing around him, then. Faintly at first, but quickly growing bright enough to illuminate their surroundings entirely. "Through this bond, we summon them." And he extends his arms to the sides, the one holding his staff tilted diagonally up at the sky and the other down at the floor.

Four mystical symbols appear in the light, rotating around Zei and emiting more light, going 'round once, then twice, before stopping and sending four flashes of light into the heavens. They spiral towards each other, and when they meet, they join into a single bright source of light which takes the form of... a bird?

Not quite. The creature flies down from the light, wings hugged close to its body for extra momentum, before it extends them so it can glide and land heavily in front of Zei, the impact enough to leave a crater on the soft sand and the wind nearly pushing Zei off his feet. It is twice as tall as he is, but it leans down forward until its eyes are almost level with his.

Zei reaches up and pats the side of the creature's beak gently, smiling up at it. "This is Valefor," he tells Edmund. "She is my first aeon. My only aeon, so far."

"Valefor," Edmund repeats. He bows to the aeon. 

She looks over Zei's shoulder at Edmund, and returns the bow.

Zei turns around to look at Edmund himself, then, keeping the hand on Valefor's beak. "There are many temples in Spira with fayth in them that can grant summoners our aeons," Zei continues. "For our pilgrimage, we visit as many of them as we can, and try to commune with as many of them as we are able. All the way from Besaid, south of here, to Zanarkand, all the way to the north.

"And there we get the Final Aeon, which is meant to be the culmination of our desires to destroy Shiin." He frowns, then, and looks up at Valefor...

...who takes this as her cue to leave. She jumps, her legs powerful enough to lift her up into the air by enough that she can flap her wings to fly into the sky.

He watches his aeon go, then looks at Edmund again. "Everyone who summons Valefor will see that creature. It's the form she took, when she performed the ritual to become a fayth. Every Ifrit, Ixion, Shiva, and Bahamut look the same. As far as I know, they are the same.

"But the Final Aeons aren't. Every summoner who has killed Shiin had their own, individual Final Aeon, who did not look like any others. And every summoner who killed Shiin has lost at least one guardian. My father's guardian Auron did not survive the fight with Shiin. Lady Yocun, the high summoner of a hundred years ago, lost one guardian—but only one, out of the three that accompanied her in her journey."

"...huh. A ritual sacrifice. I can't say I'm unfamiliar with the concept, but... usually they're not so beneficent."

"It's not in the teachings," Zei says. "It's not something Yevon tells people about. When I raised this possibility with Lulu she—was distraught, but she hadn't known anything about it either. My guess here is that... however close the bond a summoner can form with the various fayth around the world, it's probably not as close as what we can have with the people who have spent our pilgrimage with us. That's probably where the power the Final Aeon has to pierce through Shiin's shell and kill it comes from. That's probably why Lady Yunalesca's husband also died when she first killed Shiin a thousand years ago.

"So! Question the first: why isn't it permanent? Why does Shiin return? Question the second: if former guardians become fayth for the summoning of the Final Aeon, why don't they stick around afterwards? Every other fayth can be found in temples around the world, they're there, available for everyone else."

"It's pretty fucking suspicious, I must admit."

"My guess, which may be complete bullshit and overactive paranoia, is that the answer to both questions is the same, that the whatever it is that's behind Shiin, creature or person or soul, uses the Final Aeon that killed it to rebuild and regenerate. Maybe I'm crazy, but I would hate to find out what happens if whatever is inside Shiin can jump ship and into you. From the story you told me, I don't want to know what a Shiin with your abilities could do."

And this theory would mean that his father's guardian, Sir Auron, is in Shiin right now, maybe being mind-controlled or, or whatever. Who knows. Ain't that a cheerful thought.

"I think... if anything like that happened to me, the Goddess would immolate us in a fury never before seen in all the worlds, which would solve your problem. But I'd rather not die."

"What would prevent it from jumping out of your body and into her, then? Genuine question."

"...I don't imagine Shiin can possess a puddle of molten jade."

"—right, probably not, for some reason I thought she'd be immune to her own fire."

"Generally she is. But - the idea of becoming host to a monster like that - she'd never tolerate it. She'd sooner destroy herself."

"I share the sentiment." Zei gestures towards the village, then, with his head, and starts walking back. "Before your impossible selves showed up my plan had been something like 'see if I can dig up any more information on this in Bevelle' and, failing that, 'see what the fuck is up with Zanarkand', but I am more than happy to take a support role."

"As I said, I'd rather not die, so that research sounds like a good idea. I'd rather be surer of my own ability to keep the bastard down."

"Yeah. So for now I guess you come with us and I do my best to play tour guide of Spira for you."

"Excellent. I couldn't ask for better."

"Save the flirting for when you're not reliant on me to speak the language," Zei says with a half-grin.

"Power dynamics, really? Right now our destinies couldn't be bound any tighter if I melted into you like an anglerfish, and I don't see that changing if I flirt with you."

"Well, there are other summoners around, and like a responsible boy whenever we run into them I will introduce them to you so that you can melt into them if you want instead."

Slight pause in conversation as they get close enough to the village they should not be speaking Al Bhed, they can resume when back to his room.

Once back in the room:

"Hmm. But what if I want a specific summoner? You've shown yourself to such an advantage."

Zei laughs. "I assure you anyone who goes on this pilgrimage will be in just as good a shape as I am," he says, despite the fact that he is now totally showing his toned bod off while getting rid of his sandals.

(He perhaps would be a little bit less overt if 1. Edmund were not showing such clear interest and 2. he had not momentarily forgotten Oni-Goroshi's presence right there.)

"Shape isn't it! How pretty you are isn't the point! You're clever and good and you take things seriously, and I like that."

"Flatterer," Zei says with no heat as he places his staff against a wall and walks back over to his bed. "Well, I—" And now he has remembered Oni-Goroshi right there as his eyes fall directly on it. "—do not know the etiquette involved here," is what he says instead of whatever he'd been going to say.

"Oh, don't be shy," she says absently. "I'm barely paying enough attention to know you stopped flirting on my account, and that's as little attention as I'm capable of paying to my wielder, so you may as well get used to it."

"Thank you, Goddess. How's your project?"

"Fascinating. The structures are completely different, everything relies on the substrate of these pyreflies - it's like building with bricks instead of river rocks. I should bring some of them back with us if we ever go home... anyway, I found a way to make you speak any language you like, but it'd reduce you to a gibbering idiot in the presence of too much generalized magic, so I'm seeing if I can specify a bit. Zei, will you pick me up for a moment?"

"—hm? Sure," he says, walking over to the sword and—does he just grab her by the hilt?

She's heavy. And - when his fingers close around her hilt, there's a feeling like part of him is being drawn into her, like power is draining out of him.

In turn, something rushes into him. A feeling like he knows exactly what he's doing. He could use this blade.

"Oh, interesting," she murmurs. "Hmm - hmm - alright, I should have enough."

"Okay?" he says, sounding bemused. "Should I let go? And what was that about?"

"Yes, yes, you can put me down now - I needed to see a mind that knew Spiran and Al Bhed, to show the pyreflies. Exile, retrieve your blade."

Edmund picks her back up and catches fire.

"Why is it that you could work with him without any fire?" he grimaces.

"Wasn't changing anything about him," she says. "Shut up and let me work."

Zei grins and watches, folding his arms.

The flames flicker out. "There we are," Edmund says in Spiran. "No more heretical linguistics."

"Oh cool!" he says in the same language. The grammar and word order are very similar, but phonemes and prosody and actual vocabulary are completely different. "—oh I should tell you about why it's heresy but on the other hand I still want you to kiss me."

Edmund steps in and kisses him. "I feel like we've had a good number of explanations today."

"Wonderful," he breathes, still grinning, and now he can get to properly kissing the pretty boy, wrapping his arms around him, one hand down the small of his back and the other up behind his neck.

Edmund - melts somewhat at the touch of Zei's hands. "Oh," he breathes.

Zei's grin widens into Edmund's lips and he cautiously maneuvers the boy to the bed. It's not exactly comfortable to sit or lie on, but it's probably better than standing or the floor.

(And Zei continues to be very much naked, a fact which Edmund might find is starting to become increasingly relevant to their activities.)

(Edmund is noticing that!)

What if... Edmund takes off his shirt and gloves, and maybe kicks off his boots. So that there can be even more skin involved in this process.

Zei isn't complaining.

He pushes Edmund onto his back on the bed, and although it groans under their combined weight it holds well enough. With one knee to either side of the other boy, he rests his weight on his shins and his left forearm while his left hand cradles Edmund's face and runs his fingers along his cheek and hair. His right hand, on the other (heh) hand, is more adventurously exploring Edmund's newly exposed skin, running fingers and fingernails against Edmund's torso and making some light overtures at the edges of Edmund's trousers.

Edmund continues being very happy about this!

"- I was going to do some math," he whispers, "about how long it's been since someone - touched me - really touched me - but I'd rather not."

That gives Zei pause, and then inevitably he says, "It just occurred to me that I have no idea how old you are or how we'd tell—anyway whatever distracted what I mean to say is I would very much like to rectify that." And to punctuate that statement he slips three fingers between the waist of Edmund's trousers and his left hipbone, then slides his hand along Edmund's hip towards his crotch between them.

This is an interesting feeling that he is getting from Zei touching him there. Positive? Negative? It probably isn't negative, right, that'd be stupid. He makes a noise. It's a pleasant noise. He - makes another noise.

He's beginning to feel like he's doing something wrong. Unfortunately, his brain doesn't feel fully connected to his body. He hopes Zei can make up for it. He doesn't want this to be a problem.

"Stop. Now."

Zei nearly jumps out of his skin, which is a form of stopping. The way he also pulls away to sit up is a more definitive form of stopping.

"—what happened? What's wrong?"

"I have no fucking idea, but his brain is melting! If that's what sex is supposed to be like, I forbid it."

Edmund opens his mouth. It takes him a while to talk.

"mfine. I - mmmmmmm. I."

"Agh, it's even worse when he talks - can you heal him or something???"

Zei's eyes widen and a flush creeps up his neck and face. "I—I'm sorry, I didn't mean to—" To what? He has any sexual experience but brain melting was not really in his list of expected outcomes here! He looks at Edmund then at the sword and he nods. He doesn't strictly need the staff, it just takes an extra second or two of casting, and the healing spell goes off, the same glow shining from Edmund's chest as the previous time.

"aaaa. I. I'm, I'm, I'm o. O. Okay?"

He falls back on the pallet and whimpers a bit. "Things. Things - a lot - I -"

"...he wants you to hug him," Oni-Goroshi reports.

...really? Okay he was thinking of grabbing his canteen and offering Edmund some water but hugs are also available.

He's still not sure what went—wrong—there but he'll scoot over and. Offer a hug?

Edmund kind of spasms loosely into clinging to him.

A few minutes later, he says "Um. I'm... you don't have to keep hugging if you don't want, I think I'm alright."

"He is lying," Oni-Goroshi snaps. "Continue hugging him."

"Yes, ma'am," he says, not unhugging at all. He adjusts their position to be more comfortable, pulling Edmund's face against the crook of his neck and petting his hair and back. "And for the record I do want. I'm—sorry—for whatever I did, but I do want."

"Wasn't... wasn't you. It's..."

He burrows slightly farther into Zei's shoulder. "I think I'm. Broken about sex?"

"...I don't—I don't love thinking about people as broken," is what he comes up with. "Do you want to talk about it? Or just hug or—whatever you want is fine, there's no wrong answer here."

Hug, appears to be the answer.

"My... first time... wasn't. Good. Parents... wanted me to know what I was doing? And. We had - a service slave - they told her to. Um."

"And she told me - she didn't mind - and if they knew she didn't do it, she didn't know what'd happen."

"So."

...Zei's having to work double time here to process the inferences. Slavery hasn't been a thing pretty much anywhere on Spira since at least before the Machina War a thousand years ago, he's only heard about it from books and, well, some sex stuff some people are into.

But that implies things for sure. A service slave who was—forced to have sex with him—and he was forced to have sex with her because if he didn't his parents would have punished her somehow?

...

..........

..............what the fuck. What the actual fuck. Okay maybe Zei knows how someone could get to wanting to set someone on fire pretty terminally.

He grits his teeth because expressing the anger that's just roared its head in his chest would be actively counterproductive, here, and just breathes for a few seconds. Then he says, "I will never—ever—just tell me if you ever want me to, to go away or—or actually I'll just never do anything you don't actively want me to—Yevon what the fuck I'm so sorry."

Burrow burrow burrow.

"So. I... don't... I want to kiss you? But when you touched me there. It was. Scary. And - I couldn't talk? Because - it was scary."

And if I were capable of doing anything I might have set you on fire so I had to not be capable of doing anything, he doesn't add.

"Okay, it's okay, you can be scared," he says, petpetpetting the boy. "I won't touch you anywhere without you wanting me to, I won't do anything you don't want me to."

Snuggle? Snuggle.

"Well," he says eventually, "that's my tragic backstory. If that's what you wanted out of this encounter, you're a lucky man."

Zei buries his own face in Edmund's shoulder to laugh into his skin. "Well, if we are fighting giant monsters together, I figure we might as well get that out of the way, huh?"

"Would it have come up in the course of fighting the giant monster? The trigger seemed fairly specific."

"I would absolutely have flirted with you in the course of fighting the giant monster," Zei says vehemently. "See how I did, actually, flirt with you on the day we met."

"Granted, but I was referring more to the part where you touched my cock."

"There would have been enough inn stays for my flirting to lead there!"

"Granted. I suppose it is for the best we got it out of the way early on."

"Exactly. And now I'm feeling like sharing my tragic backstory but I'm pretty sure you got it already? Maybe not some details. My mother was Al Bhed, died when I was a baby, my father was disgraced for a while for marrying her but then he went on and killed Sin," and yes that is indeed what the word meant after all, although with Spiran pronunciation it's more like Shin than Shiin. "I was nine back then. Kimahri found me in Bevelle and my dad had told him to take me to Besaid, that's an island south of here and where I got Valefor last week. Lulu and Wakka and Wakka's brother Chappu basically raised me. Chappu died fighting Sin a year ago. And now we're here."

He says it all kind of casually, but it's a casual born from getting used to the pain rather than the painless type.

"...it's still very odd to be fighting something named Sin," Edmund says contemplatively. "My world's equivalent is a perfectly nice person when you get to know him."

"I... would say that you can try to talk to Sin and see if it's nice but actually you really shouldn't it will absolutely try to kill you and might destroy a village for its trouble."

"No, I entirely agree. My world's Sin - well."

"On that day two were born of their mother’s womb. Innocence, with eyes of burning red. Sin, with eyes of clearest blue. Innocence lived with an honest and pure heart, never straying from his mother’s word. Sin filled his heart with lies and indulgence, and deafened his ears to his mother’s pleas. When the Mother of Two broke bread, she allowed Innocence to eat his fill, as reward for his virtuous nature. Sin was cast the scraps to remind him of his worthless ways. Yet the punishment only served to feed Sin’s lusts..."

"That's the version of the story that the Church told. It goes on to describe how Innocence had Sin burned at the stake for stealing a fish."

"And are we meant to sympathise with Innocence from that story?"

"We are! Because he was nice to his mother. I'm told I cried at that story in the cathedral, when I was very young, and it was taken as a sign of my youthful piety."

"He sounds like a complete asshole!"

"Doesn't he just. Sin tells me Innocence was actually much less... like that... when they were really human children, and he was really just projecting his current self backwards. - not that I fully trust Sin? But he really is, um, easier to get along with."

"And they—stopped being humans to become something else?"

"Gods. They made themselves gods. Innocence and Sin - from what I understand, they were going to ascend together, but Innocence had a cult already believing in him, and that made him more powerful and, in turn, shaped him according to their own beliefs. So Sin was pushed aside, and became a lesser deity - but kept who he was."

"That's... a very old word. 'Gods'. Super powerful creatures people worship sometimes who are said to be responsible for various things up to and including maybe the creation of the world?"

"Yes. People worshipping them is important, it's - a power source, for them. We don't know which if any created the world but if we ever find out I'll have some strong words for them."

"We don't have those. —well I guess we could have someone who made the world and then vanished but I have no reason to believe so."

"Well, you've got one now." Edmund gestures in the vague direction of Oni-Goroshi.

Zei grins and shakes his head. "We should probably sleep, it's been a while since sunset." He eyes the other bed then adds, "I could push the beds together. If you'd like."

Edmund snuggles closer in response.

"- actually I'll sleep funny if I'm wearing my trousers, let me -" He kicks off the trousers and snuggles back in, happily nude.

He isn't complaining! And with the added context and the lack of the dividing wall of the shower area he can—no he should probably not cop a look he doesn't know how far Edmund's thing extends so he will not be weird about it.

"I'll unfortunately need you to let go for me to fetch the other bed."

"Acceptable," Edmund decrees, unhugging temporarily.

Bedwards and then he pushes it to the other one and now they have a lot more space to snuggle.

Yay, more straw. That's not entirely fair, the bedding is actually some kind of dried grass that's substantially softer and less scratchy and pokey than regular straw. Still.

Snuggle. He really wants to touch Zei more but that might melt his brain again so he'll just sort of hug him 'round the middle.

Zei himself is slightly tempted to suggest that but—Edmund's pace, he said it himself.

And actually, between the boat trip all the way from Besaid, fighting Sin on said boat, and then watching it come to Kilika and destroy half the village, and then helping recover and prepare the dead, and then Sending them, and then everything with Edmund... he's beat. Edmund might find himself possessed of a dozing Zei very very quickly now that he's finally given himself permission to relax.

In a serendipitous turn of events, Edmund is pretty exhausted too. He is possessed of a dozing Zei for only a short while before he dozes off himself.

His dreams are less turbulent than usual. Perhaps it's that he's farther away from the rotting hulk of the Beast, which has haunted his nightmares for so long. Perhaps it's the human contact. Impossible to say.

Zei is an incredibly heavy sleeper and furthermore will sleep a whole nine hours if not woken up before that. His long-suffering companions are used to this by now and will in fact not come bother them very early.

Edmund wakes up first. He freezes, for a moment, then remembers where he is.

He stays snuggled up, for now. It's cozy.

This author was not joking when they said Zei will not wake up if not actively woken up. He might make some noises that sound like he might be awake but they are lies and he will promptly return to sleep, perhaps after snuggling up a bit closer to Edmund.

...bored now. Out Edmund wiggles, with an apologetic nosekiss.

Zei smiles in his sleep but does not open his eyes.

The room itself is probably devoid of anything to entertain Edmund, except maybe the as-yet unexplored small cupboard could have something inside it? ~An adventure.~

Actually he's just going to take Oni-Goroshi and practice some forms for a while. It wouldn't do to rely entirely on Virtue Gems for his fighting abilities. She's made it very clear that she expects him to be worthy of her on every level.

The room has enough space for this, and for at least the next half hourish he will be undisturbed.

By which point he's worked up enough of a sweat that he's considering using up another shower-sphere. But he'd like to ask Zei about it, so he'll wait for him to wake up.

He does stir right about then, blinking up blearily and covering his eyes from the light that is not really nearly at all stopped by the curtains on the window. He smiles at Edmund and says, "Morning, handsome. Did I miss your training with the sword? I would have liked to watch that."

"I can show you some time! But right now I was wondering if I should feel free to use another one of those shower-spheres."

"Oh yeah sure. These are pretty cheap to make, every inn has tons, they're complimentary."

"Excellent. I'm not as salty as last night, but I am pretty well covered in sweat."

Without further ado: shower!

"So, uh, I noticed a thing, please tell me to shut up if this is making you uncomfortable, but. In your, uh..."

"In my -" Edmund looks down and blushes. "Ah! Um. Yes, it's - um - so, you know that where I'm from there are magical gemstones. The main kind are virtue gems, which you set into weapons and apparel and allow you to perform various kinds of magic. There's also essence jewels, which instead enhance your. Personal characteristics? And they have to be set into your skin in various ways to function. And - um - this is something of an artifact from back when I was a secret revolutionary, but - there's certain advantages to hidden weapons, right, and a weapon they never know about is the best kind. And. Even if you get imprisoned, and stripped of your weapons and armor, and every limb bound -" he grins weakly "- they're probably not going to look very closely at your cock? So. It's really a practicality."

"So you have a... magical jewel? Under your foreskin?"

Perhaps now is a good time for him to put his heavy skirt on so that this conversation's effect on him is less obvious.

"A ring set with several of them. Um. It's - through the underside, actually."

He pulls back his hood to show it off. (He's also clearly not entirely unaffected by the topic.)

Zei blinks slowly then looks away, although perhaps not fast enough to hide the way he was licking his lips. "I see. Very practical," he says, voice perfectly level. Clothes clothes here are clothes here is heavy skirt okay.

"...you know, it doesn't bother me that you want to fuck me," Edmund says. "I wanted to fuck you too. It's just that my brain got in the way of actually doing it."

"Okay. Just—trying to be cautious. Don't want to hurt you by assuming something is fine when it might not be."

"- understandable but don't? I'm not going to break if you treat me like a person, and even if I get burned a couple of times I'd prefer that to feeling like you're walking on eggshells around me."

"Well in that case: I have no idea why but the idea of a dick ring like that is really hot and I wanna know how you taste."

Edmund is startled to laughter. "I think I taste fairly standard? I haven't had the opportunity to compare but I do, you know."

"That was mostly meant to be metonymous with putting your dick in my mouth." Okay however heavy his skirt is it's definitely losing the competition here.

"...We'll have to figure out some way to make it happen. Without, uh, melting my brain. But I'm very interested."

Zei opens his mouth to reply but then there's a knock on the door.

"Brudda, ya gonna take much longer there? We're on a schedule here."

"—give us fifteen minutes!"

"...us? Yevon help me, be quick about it!"

Edmund snorts. "Sorry, he's very charming!" he calls back.

Fortunately the showersphere chooses that moment to evaporate, and he can start getting dressed. He dresses his erection to the side, not hiding it per se but not accentuating it either.

"Oh I was about to tell you the magic water is good for teeth, too. Well, there's the last sphere there still," ah there's the loanword Al Bhed used for these, it literally just means 'sphere', "and more to the point do you mind if I jerk off, I'm going to be uncomfortably horny all day if I don't and my choice of attire is less good than yours at keeping it subtle."

"You know, I'd been thinking we should try that as an intermediate step between gazing lustfully at each other and melting my brain. Which is to say I don't mind at all. Do you mind me watching?"

"Certainly not." He'll even make a show of it.

First get rid of the dumb skirt, though, and then—actually he has no reason to do this while showering and wasting the sphere's duration. Instead what he does is spread his legs to give Edmund a full view, leaning back on one hand while he starts touching himself. He can make this last a bit; Zei is not good at making pretty noises, to his continued chagrin, but he can display himself to best advantage and play with himself while his breath gets heavier and more ragged.

Edmund rubs himself through his trousers absently, not enough for anything to come of it but enough to keep himself hard and prolong his enjoyment.

Zei did promise Wakka they'd be out in fifteen minutes so although he's not going as fast as he can he's still pacing himself up. He starts thrusting into his hand and leans his head back, closing his eyes and lowering himself onto his back elbow so that he can use his other hand to play with his nipple. He speeds up, and a few involuntary moans and groans escape his throat, until he finally shoots with a low grunt, his back and ass arching up and freezing for a handful of seconds while his spurts come out and splatter onto his chest and stomach one after another.

Then he slowly slumps back down onto the mattress and opens his eyes, grinning lazily at Edmund. "This is a lot more fun with an audience," he says.

"I would think so," Edmund says with a grin of his own, still massaging himself. "It was a good show."

He runs a finger along one of the lines of shoot on his abs then pops it into his mouth to lick it clean, keeping eye contact. "I will be happy to provide more of these in the future." Hyup off the bed. "But for now we should get going, we have a jungle to traverse and an aeon to acquire." Showerwards!

"I'll look forward to it," Edmund says to the promise of further shows.

He catches a mouthful of the shower water for the sake of oral hygiene, then sheathes Oni-Goroshi at his waist and heads out to investigate the possibility of breakfast. And the additional possibility of awkward conversations with Lulu and/or Wakka.

The main lobby of the inn has a handful of small tables, one of which is occupied by Zei's party.

Or, well, two of the chairs are occupied; the lion dude is just standing by the wall, arms folded, looking very body guard-ish.

The table does have what looks to be some form of breakfast, bread and butter and milk of some kind and some fruit. Most of it has been eaten, but enough food for two is still available there.

When Wakka spots Edmund he says, "Done already? —wait, you don't speak this, do ya, uh..."

"I do now! Because of magic!"

Edmund sits down. "Food, good." He starts loading up a plate. "Just checking, I am remembering your names correctly? Lulu, Wakka, um - Kimahri?"

"Yes," is all Lulu says. She seems to be... not exactly glaring but not exactly not glaring either. Perhaps it's a "trying to figure him out" kind of look. The kind of look that pierces through souls.

"He gonna take much longer?"

Edmund starts buttering a roll. "Shouldn't, he was starting a sphere as I left. Lulu, are you by any chance staring into my soul in order to determine if I'm an appropriate mate for your precious boy? Because if so I'd like a chance to defend myself verbally, rather than relying entirely on my incommunicable aura."

She rolls her eyes. "He can take care of himself."

"But we wanna know what your deal is," says Wakka, leaning onto the table. His turn to stare at Edmund, although he is much less good than Lulu at this and instead looks like he's just kinda squinting. "You half-Al Bhed too?" he asks, making sure to lower his voice. "Wait, no, he got you the book, didn't he?"

"Ah, right, the exposition was delivered in a private conversation... I'm not any part Al Bhed, I'm Oriathan born and raised. Which is to say I am from another world entirely. My proof of this comes mostly in the form of having a talking sword."

"Am I a party trick now, Exile?"

"Weren't you always? - anyway, I have no personal connection to the Al Bhed but I'm afraid that doesn't mean I'm not a heretic."

"Please don't say that out loud," says an arriving Zei with long-suffering amusement.

"...he have your sense of humour, eh?" Wakka asks Zei.

"Let's say it's that." He plops onto the chair next to Edmund's and gets some food, himself.

"I just feel that if anyone is going to be disturbed by my lack of faith I'd rather have it out now than later."

"I'm not getting the joke."

"High Summoner Braska married an Al Bhed, Wakka, and Edmund," this time he pronounced it right, "is from another world. Come on."

...grumble grumble arm fold.

"And you're taking him with us."

"He's useful! And pretty. But mostly useful."

"Hmm."

"I am both of those things! Besides, the more the merrier, no? I specifically bring merriment in the form of expert swordsmanship and lots of fire."

"We already have fire."

"Do mine ears deceive me? Is Lulu complaining about too much fire?"

"Hmm."

"Fire is really the kind of thing where you either want none of it or a lot of it."

"Not true! Sometimes you only want enough of it to set the plant-based fiend attacking you on fire."

"...ah, perhaps this is a magical difference - do you only have the kind of fire that spreads beyond where you put it? We don't tend to do that."

"It's inelegant."

"I burn exactly what I want to burn," says Lulu, raising a hand and pushing some fire out of her palm. "Not more, not less."

"'Ts usually more than I'd burn," Wakka mutters under his breath.

If looks could kill.

"Then I firmly agree with Lulu that the correct amount of fire is a lot of it."

"Hmmm."

"That means she likes you," Zei stage whispers to Oni-Goroshi.

Edmund finishes the last of his strange and exotic (to him) fruit. "Shall we, then? I know we're apparently on a schedule."

"The schedule's not that tight."

"If we wanna make it to the Kilika Temple before sundown, yeah it is. And not all of us go to bed as late as you, mister."

"Yeah, yeah." He finishes eating his own food and pushes his chair away to get up. "I'm ready."

The party picks up and, after saying their goodbyes to the local villagers who are in the inn, they leave.

A little ways further in, a group of people wearing the same weird yellow outfit Wakka does meets up with them. "Alright, Aurochs! To the temple, to pray for victory!" Wakka says as soon as they meet up.

    "Cap'n!" they all say in unison.

Zei is standing back from the rest of the party, a bit, and here's another chance for some tour guiding. "Is blitzball a thing where you're from? I'd guess not but I'm also surprised humans exist anywhere else, so..."

"...no. Is it... gladiatorial in some way?"

"...no, it's an underwater team sport with a ball, gladiatorial?"

"...sport... alright. You've formalized children's games in some way, that makes a kind of sense."

"I am familiar with sport," Oni-Goroshi says. "Oriath is just supremely joyless."

Zei laughs and shakes his head. "I suppose that's a way to put it, yeah. Well, Wakka is the captain of the Besaid team," and he gestures at the people dressed like him, "and after Kilika Temple we're heading to the mainland and the southernmost city there is where the international tournament is held. So they're playing."

"...huh. Alright, that... also makes sense, I guess. You have international... sports? People care that much about it?"

At that Zei's smile turns sadder. "We take our joy wherever we can get it. There's not much in the way of... things to be happy or excited about. Anything we try to build, Sin destroys. We cherish what little we do have."

"...yeah. It's just that usually back home it's, well, plays or gladiators. For entertainment."

"Plays exist, here and there. Mostly musical ones. Luca has a big amphitheater, too. But there's something about team sports like that that lots of people like. I can't say I understand it, but I like it too."

"Well, maybe I'll watch some. Wakka's game, maybe."

"I'm actually a reserve for their team, just in case one of them gets injured or whatever," he admits.

"Well, in that case it's practically my duty."

He grins. "I'll do my best not to disappoint."

    "Hey Zei," one of the team members drops by to say, "you gonna introduce your new friend to us?"

"—right yes. Edmund," he says, gesturing, "and these are Letty, Jassu, Keepa, Datto, and Botta, the Besaid Aurochs."

        "And don't you forget it!" says the one called Botta.

"...a pleasure," Edmund says. "Letty Jassu Keepa Datto Botta, alright. I'm afraid I might forget at some point, I'm used to a very different naming paradigm."

    "And what kinna name is Edomunodo anyway?" asks Letty.

        Botta, the bigger of the lot, wraps an arm around Letty's head and gives him a noogie. "Please ignore 'im, he never learnt his manners."

"It's fine, we grew up together and I took forever to memorise their names, too," Zei confesses.

"Yes, my name is apparently a bit of a tongue-twister. ...admittedly it's a bit odd even where I'm from. Difficult to apply declensions to."

"To apply what now?"

"Um, linguistic construct not found in either of the native languages here - essentially it's like conjugating verbs but you do it to nouns depending on what they're doing in a sentence. But there's not a natural declension for -und, so people get confused and aggravated about it and it's very amusing. Usually they just decline my name as if it were Edmundus, but I've heard some very fun variations."