The Thief's Way By Lei Tian skytiana@hotmail.com
I am a fool.

I said I would find another way, didn't I? but I couldn't, I didn't, the time was near and then it ran out, but the path didn't open up. Was there a path? Another way, out; out of this spiral of death, out of this cycle of agony and loss.

The Calm, Lord Braska's Calm, would come, and the people would rejoice and live in peace, the peace that would be fleeting and effervescent, it's what he wanted, wasn't it? It's what everyone wanted; but not me. I'm sure Yuna wouldn't have wanted it either, unless the priests have gotten to her already. Then would she feel... joy... over her father's death? Her father went through it for her, I think, after her mother, that beautiful lady, died in that shipwreck, I don't think Braska could stand to face the possibility of a day that Yuna , too, would succumb to the blue abyss, consumed by Sin.

He believed that there was always the chance, always, that Sin would not come back.

Such a little chance, hah, Jecht scoffed, and they dismissed me when I said there must be another way than this pointless sacrifice, they said that the chance that there was another way was miniscule, and wasn't worth pursuing, they just went with what they were taught, going along with the even smaller chance that sin would not return.

It will return, I know, it is what Yunalesca told me.

I sit here in fear, at the cold debris at the base of the shrine. It had been a long fall after the fight with the first summoner. My heart is numb as I think of Braska's death and Jecht's eventual one, and the result of my rampage back to the Zanarkand ruins, but I suspect, a nudging in my mind, that it is numb for a different reason. My hands are stiff and difficult to move, and the saliva in my mouth is as cold as the air around me. I fear of myself, and I fear of my death.

I think I am frightened mostly of the possibility that I could become a fiend, just like those we fought along our journey. That would be quite the ironic twist, maybe even justice. I've always considered it a favor to bring about those fiends to their second death, but now, there is no Braska to bring me to the Farplane.

Don't those with a reason stay here in the world of the living? Those souls unwilling to accept death, envious and loathing to the vitality coursing through the living.

I am... unwilling to accept death. I think..

Yunalesca, you whore. Do you think yourself clever to sacrifice your husband, that poor Zoan to be Sin for the next to destroy? Is this vicious cycle more benign now that it is in more controlled, deadly doses?

We went to the Temple of the Stolen Fayth. The thief Aleist, a powerful woman, had a love for the summoner, I think it was her brother. She had this temple stolen to keep him from Sin. It didn't work. He went anyway. And then he died.

But he was unsuccessful.

I wonder how she would have felt, that kniving twist in her heart, pludging into the field of her mind, as she collapsed in the bundle of her flailing limbs and her failing heart.

Futile. Both attempts. This tradition.

But... at least she tried. The thief scrambled to find another way, it didn't work as she had hoped, but maybe it wasn't hopeless after all.

I have a purpose now, it will bind me to this earth.

I will find another way, not Yunalesca's, I will finish off what you started, Lady Aleist. I will not let another summoner succumb to Braska's fate. Let no other come to death.

First.. for you, Braska, I will bring your daughter away from those lying monks of Bevelle, let them not corrode her as they did to you. I will take her someplace safe, and hope that she does not chose your path. And if she does, I will find another way for her, less futile than the one you chose.

Second.. for you, Jecht. I will find that son of yours, within the dreams of the fayth, and I will bring him here, to you, because he deserves to know the father he had.
but he would only be just a dream..
A dream... that will join you.. us... for only then, from this path, the Fayths will have no more need to dream.

In your Zanarkand, Jecht, is where it will all end.

I'll see you later, old friend, old friend, for now I have to walk the road of a thief.

A stealer of "life", a robber of "hope", I will mug Spira for its spiral and I will change the world.

Not ever death can stop me now.