Story: Sometimes Venus Orbits the Moon (all chapters)

[Author's notes: Written about a year before the rest, so apologies if there's a little similarity between this and a later vignette on the same theme.]

Yuna's expressive eyes were well suited to tears, but that perfect porcelain smile Lulu had taught her to master (dear Yevon, forgive me) was still fixed on her face three months into the Eternal Calm. Macalania lake might thaw sooner than Yuna's tears. Her former Guardian feared she would never learn to weep and let go. It was the hardest lesson of all, but it couldn't be rushed.

So Lulu left her alone when she wanted to be alone, and spent a lot of time using her glare to good effect to keep the world at bay, as always. Some accused her of the Evil Eye and others said worse, but they could have Sin back, for all she cared: Yuna had suffered enough without having to endure breezy well-wishers who had no idea what she'd been through on their behalf.

Besaid's jungle was useful for keeping a celebrity out of the public eye. Even that little island got too much traffic now, but the Fiends weren't gone entirely, and casual visitors lacked a pilgrimage's worth of training to help them make quick work of anything that came shambling out of the shadows. It was a pity that gentle-hearted Yuna couldn't take the same grim satisfaction as the mage in a well-aimed blast of lightning. But the Summoner liked the forest, the strange cries, the soft sounds of the rain plashing on a thousand levels as the leaves quivered overhead, and there were waterfalls enough to shed all the tears she kept hidden inside.

This particular waterfall had belonged to Lulu and Chappu, but Lulu didn't mind sharing. She didn't mind that Yuna had nothing to say, and had run past small talk and halfhearted giggles into silence, leaning against the mage's shoulder drowsily while the spray from the freshet a few paces away dusted them and coated their hair with fine, tiny spheres of dew. The mage had one arm loosely around her and sat straight-backed and stiff gazing out at the darkening wood for any unwanted visitors: four-legged, no-legged, or two.

Yuna sighed. "Late," she whispered. "We should... go home." Her voice was too flat. Another boatload had arrived today, and a whole handful of mainlanders had been lurking around the temple waiting for a chance to see the great High Summoner.

Lulu dipped her head. "We can wait until dark if you like. Wakka will only fret a little; he knows we can take care of ourselves."

She had not meant for the comforting kiss that skipped across Yuna's forehead to turn into something else; she had kept those feelings carefully buried, mostly even from herself. But who had gone on two pilgrimages to save Yuna the trouble? Who had said, "I will," when Yunalesca asked which of them would sacrifice themselves for their Summoner? Who had watched over her with silent watchdog devotion, and yet stood back to let a young woman find her wings, never clipped them, only fought tooth and nail to keep the world from breaking them?

Sisters was so much easier to feign.

But when Yuna looked up as the sorceress bent over her, somehow (not somehow, it could be no accident; Yuna would step off the highest tower in Bevelle to avoid being where she did not wish to be) their lips skimmed across each other. Lulu stiffened. Yuna hesitated too, but only long enough for blue-green eyes to widen. Then she nuzzled back, mouth warm and quiet and lonely, and it felt like the insistent song of a Summoner's staff calling a long-dead spirit forth from cold stone.

Lulu's will frayed just enough to answer. She drew her arms around her precious Summoner, enveloping her in her sleeves, and kissed the tears away one by one when they came at last.

Chapter 2

He's not coming back. They had all said it with clucking sympathy and aggravating certainty. Each time, the thorns of despair had bitten deeper, and Yuna's denials had grown more stubborn. She was High Summoner. She'd defeated Sin. She'd defeated Yevon. She'd changed the world. Why not this? But the truth was that he'd never even existed. Dreaming differently couldn't change reality.

One person had never pressed that truth upon her, however. Lulu had let her digest it at her own pace, let her pour out hopes and defiance for as long as she needed to cling to them. Lulu, who had her own reasons to be bitter nowadays, reasons with spiral green eyes and a bubbly laugh.

Not that the mage had blamed Rikku. No, poor Wakka, as usual, had borne the brunt of her disdain. After a few halfhearted apologies, he'd fled on an Al Bhed airship, leaving behind a wake of gossip.

Yuna had heard from him and Rikku a few times since then, and it was so clear that they'd found their own dream, the happiness the Calm was supposed to bring, that she'd stopped being indignant on Lulu's behalf. The mage had let him go with only a few stinging words. Maybe Rikku had been right, after all: Wakka needed wings, not a leash.

Their last commsphere had mentioned Cid's wrath and pleaded for Yuna to attend the wedding, which they seemed to be planning with some urgency. Lulu had taken the news calmly, remarking that she was less of a dragon than they imagined, and she hoped they would let her see Vidina when he was born.

The fiends of the jungle had taken a thorough drubbing, however, during her weekly hunt with Besaid's resident gunner. Yuna had joked that they could have saved themselves a lot of grief by falling in love with each other instead. She'd laughed when she said it. Lulu hadn't, and her cryptic smile had shattered a half-dozen assumptions.

It had taken Yuna just one day to sift through the wreckage and figure out what to do about it. Maybe she hadn't been joking after all. Or maybe she'd learned to make up her mind quickly in self-defense, since others had tried to make her mind up for her so many times.

All she knew was that she was suddenly glad Tidus wasn't coming back, glad that her hotheaded cousin had screwed up Wakka's engagement with one exuberant kiss during the Auroch's post-season victory party, and shyly grateful to Paine for teaching her a few things that Summoner's training had not covered.

Like how to reduce the most powerful mage in Spira to trembling helplessness using three fingers.

"Why didn't you tell me, Lulu?" she'd asked afterwards, drowsy and tingling in the gray-blue light before dawn.

"Oh, Yuna. Haven't you noticed, after all this time?" The mage's lips grazed her cheek. "I stopped trying to tell you anything when you became a Summoner. You follow your heart. I... follow."

Chapter 3

Five years used to seem like a long time.

Now twenty seems short. No, her hair doesn't show gray like my black shows lightning zigzags. But I've stopped being older and wiser, and she's stopped leaving me behind.

Thankfully, pilgrims don't often visit Besaid anymore to view the High Summoner and her ex-Guardian like ghosts on the Farplane. For the first few years, it seemed as if Yuna would never be granted the Calm she'd earned, but she has it now. She mentors the children that mainlanders send to our little temple school. I teach them geography and history, and she teaches them how to think and question and believe. In the monsoon season, we visit Rikku and Wakka and their unruly brood.

The ocean behind our house has become a source of joy instead of sorrow.

Yuna still goes down to our private dock every day, but I think she's finally forgotten why. She whistles to the gulls. They answer. She dances, but not for the dead. We've both left ghosts behind.

I wish she could still walk on water. I wish the waves would bear her aloft on a lily of living surf. But it's so much better without pyreflies. The water on her cheeks is only spray, not tears. Her smile is real.

Yuna doesn't dance alone now. Her hands are laced with mine. Her left eye is the ocean's green, her right reflects the sky. Mine mirror the sunset. And when she catches me off-guard and whirls me into her spiral dance, lifting me off my feet and teasing me for nursing my scrolls all day like a nesting chocobo, it feels to me as if she still can walk on water, after all.

Chapter 4

What have you done?" Yuna's fists were on her hips in easy reach of holsters, a subtle reminder that she was no longer anyone's saint. Her eyes were curiously appraising, however. "Paine put you up to this, didn't she?"

"Rikku helped." Lulu raised a finger, forestalling. "My idea. You don't like it?"

Yuna gave an experimental riffle to the black fuzz on the right side of Lulu's head. She'd kept a lopsided style, but the longer curtain of hair now ended behind her left earlobe, trimmed at an elegant slant. "It's... going to take some getting used to. You've lost the one-eyed look." The younger woman absolved her with a peck on the cheek. "Maybe that's a good thing. But if you start sporting leather pants and spikes--"

"Sorry, no." Lulu winked. "My rump's gotten too wide to hide with a blade anyway."

Yuna's hands slid around Lulu's waist to squeeze her. "Good. Too cuddly." The mage snorted, but Yuna was the only person who could survive pointing out that Lulu's curves had grown even more ample now that she wasn't walking the length and breadth of Spira, demonstrating that stately and plump were not mutually exclusive.

In the shadows of the Celsius' landing gear, Rikku rolled eyes at Paine as the once-shy Summoner and Guardian sank into each other's mouths right there on the beach. Brother probably had the sphere-cam on. "Yunie likes it," the thief said smugly. She yelped as Paine swiped two of her braids and started hauling her up the ramp. "Okay, okay, I'm not snippin' mine. Sheesh."

"Good." Paine flipped her blue headband down over her eyes. "Too convenient."

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

She makes love to me every morning.

Oh, not that way, don't worry: Yuna's playing the virgin sacrifice so perfectly that all Spira is holding its breath for her to die the part. When Sin bursts over the Calm Lands like a flower flaming out, they'll pine and sigh and cluck their tongues over the tragic beauty of innocence cut short.

Like Chappu's bones rolling in the muck at Djose, only that wasn't pretty at all.

I have no claim to her love: all Spira loves her, and she loves all of Spira. She is dear to so many.

She is dear to me in ways that make me fierce and proud and vulnerable. I went on two pilgrimages before I was ready, in order to save her the trouble. I failed one summoner, and the other failed me. I don't think either will be a problem on this pilgrimage.

I wish she'd fail me. I wish she'd lose her nerve, run away with that fool boy from the sea who tries so hard not to see what's coming.

Ah, Yuna's awake. Brushing out my wet hair, I listen to the quiet murmurs of a summoner's devotions in the gray-blue light before dawn. She prays with such sweet conviction. Yevon is always atonement for me, belts and buckles meant to keep me from going astray. For her, it's wings, sacrifice made easy. No wonder Valefor always comes to her with a look of pure devotion. They are almost the same soul.

"Good morning, Lulu!" Her buoyant greeting's barely changed since she first resolved to die. There's a quick hug sometimes, if one of us has been having nightmares. Soft words, confidences, girl talk. Mage talk. What the next aeon will look like. What to do when Wakka finally discovers who Rikku is. What I remember about the last time I came this way. Why I should put off roasting Tidus one more day.

Her fingers, now. With practiced speed they spill along my scalp, tucking the ends in and leaving neat, tight rows that pinch my eyebrows back. It's the same taut strain as the corset, curiously comfortable when one gets used to it, subtly reminding me of my body and skin. A useful counter; I think too much.

Our hands join briefly as we sweep up part of the undisciplined mass into a bun, tucking pins into place. Yuna divides the remainder into four parts. Then it's a slow, gentle, tug-tug-tug, weaving my braids with a deft rhythm that feels like music or something more intimate.

We each take two plaits. If we're not talking, there's another, deeper kind of conversation, the communion of fingertips' touch. Sometimes it's teasing, getting in each other's way and making a race of it. Sometimes it's unspoken reassurances, comfort, solace, the caress that says, "I know you're hurt" or "I'm listening." Sometimes it's unacknowledged flirting, a tactile duet that flows between us until it's all I can do to keep my breathing steady.

"I win!" she says. I don't dispute her.

Yuna has her role, I have mine. She licks the tip of a braid and slips several blue beads over the end to keep each strand in place. I do the same.

Dawn's coming.

Just once, I wish I dared ask her to brush out my hair under the moon.

Story: Sometimes Venus Orbits the Moon (all chapters)

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6