Work Text:
Twice before he had traveled the long road, the Summoner's road, between Gagazet and Besaid. Once within Calm, once seeking it.
Twice he had traveled it almost entirely by her side. Once she was a child, once a Summoner.
Now, once more, he had set out on the ship from Besaid, onward to the Highroads, to the Plains, on at last to the mountain towering high above all else. Now, the only time, he was alone.
Before he would never have chosen to leave her, the child he'd carried away from the bridge and from all she'd ever known on that night long ago, when his head had still ached from his broken horn but not with such pain as she'd held in her torn-open heart. Before there had been many Ronso on the mountain, and he could find peace in his exile.
Now Gagazet called to all her scattered children, however many still remained. There was silence on her slopes, the tremulous voices of those so elderly or so young that they could stay in the caves without shame when Seymour came not enough to lend the mountain life. The shame of his broken horn he could bear, though it had driven him from his home. The shame of ignoring Gagazet's need to stay by Yuna's side would be unforgivable.
The first time he had traveled the road he had felt torn, caught between the home he had left behind and the life he had promised that he would lead the High Summoner's child to. The second torn between supporting the dream of peace that he knew none could stop her from following and protecting that life he held most dear. This third time he felt torn again, between the girl he had helped raise and the duty he must fulfill. She had been weeping the last time he'd seen her, as she had been the first time he'd seen her, tears hidden this time in the predawn gloom instead of the freshly fallen night. She never asked him to stay, the heavy weight of duty one she knew too well, but clung to him until the last moment before the ship set sail. If Wakka and Lulu had not been there to guide her back down the gangplank he thought she might never have left.
If Lulu and Wakka had not been there to guide her back down the gangplank he thought too that he might not have had the will to turn her away if she chose to follow him, although he knew that the mountain scorned any but Ronso and fiends who attempted to make a home of her slopes.
She could not come. He could not stay. Soon all of Spira would lay between them.
He only hoped that in time Gagazet's need would lesson and he would be free to walk the road a final time, and return to her once more.