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Year 8 of Braska's Calm

Day 1:  Choices
Day 20: Lady Ginnem?
Day 25: Chappu's Reaction
Day 26: Ginnem's Arrival
Day 27: Besaid Cloister
Day 29: Chappu's Goodbye
Day 30: To Kilika
Day 32: Kilika Island
Day 33: Concering Sin
Day 34: Luca
Day 35: Mi'hen Highroad
Day 39: Mushroom Rocks
Day 41: Djose Shore
Day 42: Djose Cloister
Day 43: Concerning Magic
Day 44: Bevelle Festival
Day 50: Still in Bevelle
Day 52: Macalania Forest
Day 54: Of Summoners Past
Day 56: Lake Macalania
Day 57: Macalania Temple

Final Fantasy X characters, setting, locations, and original images/screencaps of Spira © Square-Enix. Photomanips and this journal created by Helluin.

Day 57, 8th Year of Braska's Calm


I keep waking in the night expecting to see my nails have turned to ice, and my hair snow-white like the moon. Who was she? Vanity, arrogant vanity, that I could...

No, I won't waste oil. I'm awake. Lady Ginnem sleeps the honorable sleep of a Summoner wearied from her labors. Here is our day's work.

The Cloisters of Malacalania are different: they seem designed to cage Summoner and Guardian within the Fayth's lair. Paths appear and disappear, and one must take great care on slick footing, for there are several steep drops. Feet slip on ice when pushing and pulling the pedestals that open the barriers. I will have to come back here to enter these Cloisters again for study, if I am allowed. I should like to know what magic it is that can hold and dissipate solid masses of ice without the will of a spell behind it.

Fayth take the shapes of birds, beasts, wild creatures bearing little resemblance to human forms. What, then, is Shiva? I suppose she may have been a very different woman, but she remains woman. More, she is aware. No, I do not mean the other Aeons are mindless. But this one— her eyes were sharp and lucid, almost amused, sizing up my Lady during the Summoning ritual following the Trial. For a moment I thought I might have to defend Ginnem.

That battle I would lose. Ixion's power extends as far as the fringes of his Temple, causing the Lightning Rocks to rise, but Shiva freezes a lake, half a forest. She descended before us with the lazy assurance of a snowflake settling, but she gave a small demonstration of her power, shattering a fleeting lake of ice with a mere snap of her fingers.

I wonder if she retains the power of speech.

With the aid of four Aeons, especially this one, we shall be fortified for the greater trials of the Calm Lands. For this is our last Temple. We retrace our steps as far as the cross-roads to Bevelle, then we head north.

I wish there were some way to send a message to Chappu, but the Guado do not go farther than Luca, and there is little to say save that we have made progress. He will worry. He'll not let it throw off his game, however; he's a buoyant soul who doesn't waste time fretting on what one can't change. Wakka will be doting on him in his well-meaning way; I'm sure I'll hear Chappu's long-suffering tales of his overprotective brother when I get back.

I wonder how Yuna is coming in her training. Are the priests pushing her too hard? Or, more likely, is she pushing herself? Has she learned that healing spell she was trying to coax Father Turan to teach her? Seeing the Aeon beside Ginnem today made me think of her. What if she should prove prodigy, and enter the Cloisters of the temple before I return?

Kimahri will guard her. I should be there, but I trust him. An irony, that. I was suspicious of him when he first brought Yuna to Besaid; he looked too much like a fiend!

My fingers are numb. We will have to try and find the fiend from which came Lady Ginnem's Fire Gems. We will need many, many more for Mt. Gagazet. She said it's one native to the Calm Lands. I hope it's not one of the hard-shells.

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