“Yo, I couldn’t help but overhear you talking in here. Place echoes, since it was abandoned after Vegnagun was destroyed. My name’s Shawna.” She said as she leaned the weapon against a wall and turned to me with a curios smile on her face. “So you knew Tidus huh?” She asked me.

 “Yeah, we grew up together. I met him at a Blitz Ball Camp run by his dad.” I said looking back up at the face of the Braska statue. “They were really fun times, the stories I could tell you.” I said as I smiled at her. “Name’s Tina in any case.”

 “Oh, I’d like to hear these stories. Nothings better then fellow girls sharing stories on guys they know.” She said as she looked at Braska.

 

“Seems sad that all the Summoners save those from 4 years ago died. I’m kind of glad though. If it wasn’t for Tidus and Yuna finding a way to defeat Yu Yevon, we’d only have a Ten year Calm instead of the Eternal Calm. It’s also kind of sad though. So many people died in the process of surviving Sin.”  She said as she bent down to pick up her sword again. “Anyway, I have to go train my sword Technique with Tidus and my parents. I’ll see you around I guess.” And then she turned and left with a swish of her long white coat. I was once more alone in the temple.

 

 I looked at the other statues, and then turned to look at one statue in particular. It was a statue of a young woman, a young woman who looked very familiar. From where, I could not guess. After a few more moments of solitude I wandered down to the Crusaders Lodge and sat down at the table.

 

 I was thinking about how I had arrived here, and how my last days in Zanarkand were spent wandering around in a blur. I didn’t remember much of how it all really happened. I could remember a few key points, but not much. Things were starting to make me want to scream. Yet I bit my lips and held it in. Things would be fine in the end. At least that’s what I kept telling myself.

 

 Tidus had been spending a lot of time with either this Girl Shawna or the members of the Besaid Aurochs Team training for the finals, so I spent my time avoiding him as much as possible. I didn’t see any reason to bother with him, now that I knew he was okay.  So I started to spend more and more time within the Temple, I’d sit for hours on the steps leading to the cloister of trials, and just look at the Statues. It got to be that I knew their names. Lord Braska, Lady Yunalesca, Lord O’Holland, were the few that actually stood out the most in my mind. Yet I didn’t know why.

 

 I must have had the habit of being in the temple for a month or more when Wakka asked me a question. He had asked me to go for a short walk around the Island so I agreed, and we had stopped off at the cliff to rest when he slapped my ass lightly and sent me flying into the waters below. He dived in soon after. When I was done screaming at him for pulling such a prank he laughed and held up his hands.

 

 “I got a favor to ask yah. You see, the Blitz Ball Tournament is coming up, and Tidus isn’t going to be there because he has some things to do somewhere else for a while.” Wakka said as he floated in the water in front of me.

 “Let me guess. You want me to join the team.” I said as I looked up at the sky above me.

 Wakka nodded and smiled. “Four years ago, I asked the same thing from Tidus. He agreed, and brought our team to Victory. That was the year, Yuna and all of us went on a Pilgrimage to Zanarkand yah.” I floated in the water and looked at the sky then dove for a bit and when I resurfaced Wakka was looking at me with a smile on his face. “So what do you say? Will you help us this year?”

 “Yeah Sure, okay.” I said as he and I swam around the waters and then diving under the rocks to a cave that lead to a sloping hill at an old stone monument. We were standing at the monument talking about the various passes and shots used in the underwater sport of blitz ball when a strange thought entered my mind.

 

 Now this thought normally isn’t something I’d ask, but for some unknown reason I found myself asking it.

 “Wakka, when I first met Rikku and she was telling me about the war between Bevelle and Zanarkand, she wouldn’t tell me one thing. What is it?”

 Wakka looked at me, and then turned and started to walk away. “It’s best you ask the Man himself who knows the one thing you don’t know about him. He knows it better then anyone. None of us really know how to explain it yah.” He said as he looked at the Town as it steadily grew closer as we walked towards it. “Tidus has your answers yah. It’s best you talk to him.” He then turned to me. “Don’t spend all your time in the Temple yah, feel free to come down to the beach and show us your style in blitz ball.” He then turned on his heel and ran back up the sloping hill.

 

He left me there, standing just before the gateway. I was staring up the hill and shaking my head. He told me Tidus had the answer I sought, and yet Rikku said Lulu or Yuna had the answers I wanted.

 

 I was alone, and I didn’t know who had the answers to my questions, and I felt so very alone. It didn’t matter that I had all these people around me, I still had the feeling of being utterly alone, that someone was in the back of my mind resting. Who it was I couldn’t say at the time. It was just a feeling I had at the time. I had next to no time to really contemplate the feeling of another person inside me, in fact I never really thought about it. I just knew it was there and never questioned it. 

 

 Sighing I turned and made my way back into the town of Besaid. My mind was a kaleidoscope of thoughts, and I had no idea where to begin. Who was I to ask, and who would tell me what I really wanted to know? What were they all hiding from me?

 

 So there I was looking at the hill when I felt the hand touch my shoulder. Looking I saw it was gloved in black, with the fingertips cut off. Knowing it was Tidus I decided to finally confront him on the questions in my mind. Even if a part of me didn’t want to have anything to do with him. Little did I know he had decided to confront me on a few issues as well.

 

 “Hey Tina,” He said standing next to me, “I got some questions to ask you.”

 “Ask away Dork.” I said as I crossed my arms over my chest and leaned against the brick wall on the inside of the gate. Tidus remained standing looking towards the Hill. His hands were in his pockets and his face held the smile I remembered as one he only had for me. Something I remembered from our childhood. All I did was stare at him, and he turned his head and caught me looking at him, but I don’t think he cared.

 

 “Look, when I disappeared you said it was four years I was missing right?” He asked me “Not only that, but that you were there for four years of the War between Bevelle and Zanarkand right?” I nodded my head and looked away.

 “It was horrible.” I said. “A lot of people died in those four years. Myself? I threw myself into Blitz Ball. It was something the people could enjoy. It helped them forget that we were at war.”

 “Yeah, I can understand that.” Tidus said as he looked away from me again and sighed. “Four years ago, Yuna explained that Blitz Ball was a way for the people of Spira to forget about Sin if only for a few moments.” And that’s when he told me. He told me of his adventures with Yuna, and the others. Of the Pilgrimage, and about how he had fallen for Yuna. He then told me about Yunalesca, the Summoner that Yuna was named for. He told me she was a crazy woman, whose true form as the Harvester of Souls, was the scariest thing he ever saw.

 

 I would have learned more, but my head was pounding, and there was a ringing in my ears, and what sounded to me as a female voice. A faint voice I remembered as something from my childhood. It must have been a toxin dream or something, I really couldn’t say, but the next second I knew, I was falling, and everything was spinning, and there were people around me, and they all looked very worried, but the faces kept changing. First it was Lulu, then it was Yuna, Then it was Tidus. The faces they kept changing, and somewhere I knew apart of me was angry at them all. At all the faces, and the female voice was laughing. The laughter, scared me.

 

 When I regained my vision I again found myself on the beach of  Besaid Island. My ankles were covered in water, and tears were once again falling from my eyes. I had no idea what was going on anymore, and I was I’ll admit getting scared. I was starting to feel very much like a puppet, and this time I was feeling really weak for some reason.

 

 So as I stood there, I fell. It was like my legs were not there and I just fell sideways looking at the Sun as it set into the sea. My hair fell from it’s hair tie and flew up as I fell down, and my vision was blurred with tears.

 “Tina!” I heard someone shout as I fell. I was waiting for water to surround my body, but instead I felt arms. Arms of a male person. They were muscular, and strong. Oddly enough the arms made me smile, but tears still fell from my eyes. It was then that I realized that sobs were coming from my mouth. Actual sobs of  sadness.

 

 “Tina, you’ll be okay.” Said the voice again. It wasn’t a voice I knew. In fact, the voice I found, was oddly soothing. I curled up in the arms of the man who was carrying me and softly cried like a child as this person pushed his way through what I believe to be a crowd of people, saying over and over that I would be okay. I closed my eyes, and that’s all I knew.

     

 I was dreaming.

 

 I was dreaming of the day I first met Tidus. It was really weird, because someone, my mother I guess told me to go make friends with the nice young boy and then when I turned she was gone. So I went to go talk to Tidus and we became friends. Yet when it was time for Tidus and I to go home my mother didn’t show. I was alone.

 

 So I stayed in that park, where the day camp for blitz ball was being taught. I had no where to go, and my mom was not there to pick me up. Then it started to rain and I got cold. I don’t know how long I was out in the rain for, but I know I ended up getting sick. When I woke up, I found myself in the warm confines of a bed, and an old lady was smiling down at me. She said, and I’ve always remembered this.

 

 “Tidus found you. You were collapsed on the ground. Poor child. Where’s your mom?” I don’t know very much about what I said after that, all I know for certain was that I had gotten very sick and my mother, never returned. So I grew up with the Old lady taking care of me, and she lived next door to Tidus. That is how we met, and that’s how we got to know each other so well. Heck Tina was just what the old lady decided to call me. Since when I got better I couldn’t remember my name period.

 

 Then one day... Jecht, his father, disappeared. Not long after, A man in a red coat with a broken arm, showed up, and then soon after Tidus’ mother died. The man’s name was Auron, and he raised Tidus for ten years. Then after that He and Tidus disappeared. That’s when I spent four years alone in a city, and Bevelle and Zanarkand went to war. 

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End Chapter Three.
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